Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 October 2019
During the nineteenth century, the Muslim Mediterranean became a locus of competing imperial projects led by the Ottomans and European powers. This article examines how the migration of people and ideas across North Africa and Asia complicated processes of imperial consolidation and exposed the ways in which North Africa, Europe, and Asia were connected through trans-imperial influences that often undermined the jurisdictional sovereignty of imperial states. It demonstrates that cross-border migrations and cultural transfers both frustrated and abetted imperial projects while allowing for the imagining of new types of solidarities that transcended national and imperial categorizations. In analysing these factors, this article argues for a rethinking of the metropole–periphery relationship by highlighting the important role print and trans-imperial networks played in shaping the Mediterranean region.
Research for this article was funded through the State Academic University for the Humanities (Moscow, Russia) with the support of project N 14.Z50.31.0045 from the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation.
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