Paper short abstract:

This paper reflects on the role of material culture in the shaping of global, transnational and transcultural histories through the cases of porcelain and cotton.

Paper long abstract:

This paper investigates the ways in which objects are used in history to create new understandings of geographies of interaction. From porcelain to cotton textiles, commodities connected different areas of the world in the early modern period. Ambassadorial gifts, rarities and luxury goods also served to connect different states and empires. Yet, these and other artefacts created their own geographies that do not necessarily conform to our present-day understanding of the physical map of the world. They also permit the imagining of other people, shaping ideas of worth and cultural distance as well as acting as mediums of commercial and economic exchange. This paper explores non-textual sources through a series of case studies. Riello's research on cotton textiles shows their 'global reach' as commodities but raises the issue of how the progressive expansion of their use from Afro-Eurasia into the Atlantic and the Americas should be narrated. Can we talk about a process of diffusion part of early modern globalisation, or should we conceive instead these artefacts as part of individual cultures? What is the role of European traders in articulating markets and in shaping products? Gerritsen's research by contrast, reflects on the concept of 'the local' by considering the geography of production of porcelain in China vis-a-vis their global distribution in the Ming and Qing periods. Together they wish to consider the types of connections that artefacts and commodities created in the early modern period and how they structured the physical and conceptual space that historians call 'global history'.