sigmoid.social: About · Profiles directory · Privacy policy
Mastodon: About · Get the app · Keyboard shortcuts · View source code · v4.4.1
#BlackHistoryMonth ended yesterday. Therefore, we want to share some reflections with you.
#earlyModern #NewDiplomaticHistory is still heavily Eurocentric. Moreover, there is a risk that white and European perspectives prevail even in non-European contexts despite all attemps by #GlobalHistory to questions these approaches. During the last weeks we tried to set European perspectives aside and highlight #black diplomatic actors. In doing so, we encountered a huge challange: the lack of research. (1/2)
For Cape Verde's officials to be able to confirm the high status that the Prussians themselves assigned to the Prussian enterprise, they had to embody what they considered the highest form of authority: that of the Enlightened, Christian, male and white European who was the polar opposite of the illiterate, savage, black African. In the Prussians' vision, this binary could not be destabilized: to recognize hybridity or alterity in the local elites, to question their status as “Europeans,” would be to question the legitimacy they could confer on the Prussians, which was of existential importance for them, as Gottmann argues.
This example of the encounter between representatives of the Prussian East India Company and local Cabo Verde authorities highlights the challenges of intercultural #emdiplomacy and the difficulties to deal with hybridity. (7/7)
#BlackHistoryMonth #NewDiplomaticHistory #GlobalHistory #earlymodern
However, on closer observation their identity as metropolitan Europeans was fragile. The dinner that was opened and concluded with a handwashing ceremony unfamiliar to the Prussians illustrates this. Undercooked bread, the dishes a mixture of European and African cuisine and the digestif was the most exotic of all: a decidedly un-European coconut to drink.
The dinner was not presided over by the local governor’s wife. Instead, said lady stayed in the courtyard kitchen, dressed like the locals and clearly comfortable in the company of her daughters and their black servants and slaves, all working together, laughing, joking, and cooking.
Indeed, just like the local children, the youngest of the governor’s twelve sons and daughters toddled around the house after dinner, coming up to cuddle the guests entirely naked. (6/7)
#NewDiplomaticHistory #BlackHistoryMonth #earlymodern #history #GlobalHistory #histodons
In her article "Mixed Company in the Contact Zone: the “Glocal” Diplomatic Efforts of a Prussian East Indiaman in 1750s Cape Verde" Felicia Gottmann uses the case of the #Prussian East Indian company to analyse the diplomatic strategies marginalized and hybrid players could adopt to project themselves onto the #earlymodern global stage and locally counterbalance the hegemonic Northern European Atlantic powers: (4/7)
https://brill.com/view/journals/jemh/23/5/article-p423_2.xml
#emdiplomacy #NewDiplomaticHistory #BlackHistoryMonth #history #histodons #GlobalHistory
Due to their geographical location, the #CapeVerde islands were a stopover for merchant ships and thus became a diplomatic arena. The role of trading companies in global #emdiplomacy has been emphasised during the last decades, see e.g.: (3/7)
https://brill.com/display/title/62311
https://www.aup.nl/en/book/9789462983298/the-dutch-and-english-east-india-companies
#NewDiplomaticHistory #BlackHistoryMonth #earlymodern #history #histodons #GlobalHistory
Perhaps you are a longing for a #SilentSunday, in this case this week’s #BlackHistoryMonth #emdiplomacy take offers you a relaxing weekend read:
Today we focus on #CapeVerde which were discovered by the #Portuguese in the middle of the 15th c. In 1466 the islands received trading rights in West #Africa. Cape Verde provided a stopover on the transatlantic slave trading route. Moreover, plantations were established there. However, #earlymodern Cabo Verdean society was decidedly mixed. (1/7)
#NewDiplomaticHistory #GlobalHistory #earlymodern #history #histodons
Mastodon is the best way to keep up with what's happening.
Follow anyone across the fediverse and see it all in chronological order. No algorithms, ads, or clickbait in sight.
Create accountLogin