Mobility and Belonging

Mobility makes otherness particularly visible. The movement of people and concepts calls into question existing political, social, religious, and regional differences and affiliations and transforms them. Mobile actors and the societies they encounter must continually (re)define and (re)negotiate differences and belonging. At the same time, changing affiliations and forms of belonging also affect the mobility of actors. This research area examines the interplay between mobility and belonging in modern Europe and its global relations from the 15^th to the 20^th centuries. How did mobility affect the political, social, cultural and religious »belonging« of actors who crossed borders in modern Europe? What effect did the construction of belonging have on mobility potential? To what degree did the interplay of mobility and belonging change perceptions and concepts of difference? The research area’s projects seek to answer these questions by studying the interplay between mobility practices and the construction of belonging from three complementary and overlapping perspectives – actors, texts and spaces.
 

News from the research area:  

- Workshop »Post-Conquest Materiality: Objects in the Histories of the Ottoman and Spanish Expansions«, organized by Denise Klein, Thomas Weller, Barbara Henning, and Richard Herzog, Mainz, May 12–13 2023. Programme.
 

Publications (in selection):

AUST, Cornelia/Klein, Denise/Weller, Thomas (ed.): Dress and Cultural Difference in Early Modern Europe, München/Wien 2019 (European History Yearbook 20). DOI.

FRIEDRICHS, Anne/Severin-Barboutie, Bettina (ed.): Migration. Dossier, Paris 2021 (Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 76/3). Open Access.

GRIGORE, Mihai (ed.): Orthodoxy on the Move. Mobility, Networks, and Belonging from the 15th to 20th Century, Cluj‐Napoc 2023 (Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai Theologia Orthodoxa 68/1). DOI.

KLEIN, Denise/Vlachopoulou, Anna (ed.): Transottoman Biographies, 16th-20th c., Göttingen 2023 (Transottomanica 3). Open Access.

KÜHNEL, Florian/Sciuto, Ruggero (ed.): Gender and Diplomacy in the Early Modern Period, London 2022 (The International History Review, 44,5). Open Access. 

PANTER, Sarah/Paulmann, Johannes/Weller, Thomas (ed.): Mobilität und Differenzierung. Zur Konstruktion von Unterschieden und Zugehörigkeiten in der europäischen Neuzeit, Göttingen 2023 (VIEG Beiheft 139). DOI.

PAULAU, Stanislau/Tamcke, Martin (ed.): Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity in a Global Context. Entanglements and Disconnections; Leiden 2022 (Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity 24). DOI.

SING, Manfred: Arab Feminism and Islamic History. The Transnational Life and Work of Lebanese-Syrian Writer Widad Sakakini (1913–1991), Göttingen 2022 (VIEG 255). DOI.