Abstracts
MATHIEU GRENET
Beyond diasporas and networks: Greek trade and migration in the Mediterranean, 16th-19th centuries
One of the most striking recent evolutions in the vocabulary of social sciences has probably been the sudden emergence and the quick triumph of the notion of "network” as a major key concept. In the particular case of the historiography on modern Greece, this success reinforced the earlier vogue of the term "diaspora”, that had been promoted by Greek national historiography before being recuperated by a new generation of scholars. In the most recent historiography, it even looks as if the two terms have become so close as to be interchanged; such a use could therefore justify the attacks led by a whole literature that is now pointing out the dead-ends encountered by social sciences in their use and abuse of these two concepts.
This paper doesn't aim at questioning the very existence of Greek commercial diaspora and networks during the modern period, but rather at investigating the methodological use and the conceptual input of these two terms. In this regard, this paper will focus on three major points: 1) present an up-to-date picture of the state of the art of the historical research on Greek entrepreneurs abroad; 2) point out the major pitfalls of the so-called "network analysis”, as well as the main questions raised by what has been qualified a "basic conflation (indeed confusion) between migration and diaspora”; 3) suggest some directions for further researches in the field, that would allow a more advantageous consideration of the conceptual richness of the two terms.
