- 31 May 2016
Ottoman Studies and the Rural: a historian’s perspective
Abstract
Even though Ottomanists often point to the importance of the rural economy and groups outside urban centres for the functioning of the empire, topics related to rural worlds recently have not been at the centre of their attention. This is certainly due to the urban bias of much of the textual source material. Yet recent studies have shown that there is more to be learned about the rural world in documents and texts than many assumed previously. The developing interest in environmental history in Ottoman studies, long overdue, will reinforce this trend.
In my presentation, I will discuss my work on rural societies in early-modern Ottoman Syria, drawing on different interdisciplinary projects. One focus will be the study of “hydraulic landscapes”, a term coined by archaeologist Tony Wilkinson. I am particularly interested in the political and social aspects of water administration as a way to learn more about the internal structure of rural communities.
About the Speakers
A historian by formation, Astrid Meier works as Deputy Director of the Orient-Institut Beirut since October 2013. 2011-2013 she was visiting professor of Islamic and Arabic studies at the University of Halle-Wittenberg. Her research is focussed on the social and legal history of early-modern Ottoman Syria as well as on famines and food systems in pre-colonial and colonial Sudanic Africa. She is particularly interested in the history of families and their endowments in early-modern Ottoman Damascus which was the topic of her postdoc research. She has also worked extensively on Arabic historiography and biographical writing.
Her most recent publications: “The Materiality of Ottoman Water Administration in 18th-Century Rural Damascus. A Historian’s Perspective”, in McPhillips, Stephen and Paul D. Wordsworth (eds.): Landscapes of the Islamic World. Archaeology, History, and Ethnography. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016, 19-33; with Tariq Tell: “The World the Bedouin Lived in. Climate, Migration and Politics in the Early Modern Arab East”, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 58, 2015, 21-55; “Un istibdāl revoqué. Sur le raisonnement juridique dans le sijill et quelques enjeux de son interpretation”, in Guéno, Vanessa and Stefan Knost (eds.): Lire et écrire l’histoire ottomane. Beirut: Ifpo/OIB, 2015, 87-106.
