Ségolène Débarre (CNRS UMR 8504)
Hybridations and circulations: the case of Ottoman cartography in the 19th century
Lundi 29 avril 2013 à 18h00 à l'IFEA

Intervention en anglais

Amidst growing economic and political rivalry between European powers, the work of German cartographers was crucial to developing German influence in the Orient. Using published and manuscript travel books and private and official correspondence, I analyse how the maps were made and what political, economic and cultural objectives of the Prussian government lay behind them. I point out that the interest and the imagination associated with the Anatolian territory evolved jointly on the German and on the Ottoman side, which invites to consider the history of the cartography of this region in a connected manner, as the study of an "tool" serving two Empires, the Ottoman and the German. At last, I show that the Ottoman cartography was never exclusively linked to one single foreign power but used intentionally of all kind of possible circulations as way to become gradually more independent.