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Workshop on Encounters of European Empires between 1890 and 1919
“Between National Rivalry and Inter-Imperial Cooperation: European Encounters in the World, 1890-1919” is the topic of a workshop that takes place on October 6-7, 2017, at the Institute for European Global Studies.
In recent years, research perspectives on empires and inter-imperial relations have changed in fundamental ways. Influenced by transnational and global history, researchers have developed new questions that challenge established narratives of imperial expansion. The focus on various entanglements and exchange processes at state and private levels across different empires uncovered numerous examples for cooperation and interaction between empires. These findings have fundamentally changed historiographical perspectives on European empires and have paved the way for an innovative field of research that investigates interactions and exchange processes between European actors of different empires. However, researchers have so far mostly focused on interrelations within or between the territorial possessions of European empires. The multi-faceted informal, private, or semi-official relations in regions which were not under the formal control of European empires have not been much in the focus of research.
The main aim of the workshop “Between National Rivalry and Inter-Imperial Cooperation: European Encounters in the World, 1870 – 1919” is to broaden the existing perspective on encounters of European empires on three levels: Firstly, the actual area of investigation shall be extended to European encounters in territories that were not formally controlled by the powers and the actors meeting in these areas. At the same time, the workshop aims to identify the potential consequences that these encounters between 1870 and 1919 had on Europe. This period of investigation may reveal changes in the nature of inter-imperial encounters by combining them with more traditional “turning points” in history. On a second level, this helps to discuss the relevance of the category “European” for these historical actors. Methodologically the workshop goes beyond the still dominant focus on one empire or on bi-national comparisons by bringing together analyses of actors of three or more European empires. And thirdly, the official conference languages French and German (besides English) shall encourage alternative historiographies to the anglophone empire-historiography.
The workshop “Between National Rivalry and Inter-Imperial Cooperation” takes place on October 6-7, 2017, at the Institute for European Global Studies. It is organized by Dominique Biehl (EIB, University of Basel) and Niko Rohé (University of Bielefeld). Participants need to register for the event.
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