De Linschoten-Vereeniging organiseerde samen met de Hakluyt Society, onze zustervereniging, het congres "Rethinking Power in Maritime Encounters 1400-1900". Dit congres vond plaats in de Hortus in Leiden op 5 en 6 september 2019.

Organiserend comité: Michiel van Groesen (Universiteit Leiden en Linschoten-Vereeniging), Carolien Stolte (Universiteit Leiden en Linschoten-Vereeniging), Suze Zijlstra (Universiteit Leiden) en Guido van Meersbergen (University of Warwick)
Lees hier het programma.

Over het onderwerp van de conferentie

Maritime histories have always told stories about power. Whether in the form of narratives about mastery of the seas, conquest of lands, or enslavement of peoples, traditional accounts of enterprising explorers and hardy mariners have located power and agency with a limited groups of actors: almost always male, and predominantly European. In doing so, histories of maritime encounters have mostly reproduced the perspectives contained in their sources, foregrounding the actions of European men and casting other actors as largely passive, peripheral, or powerless. These histories are in need of revision.

This conference seeks to explore new narratives of maritime power, to investigate the ways in which power was constituted and contested, how it was gendered and racialised, and through what strategies it was subverted or resisted. It aims to bring together historians working on (the limits of) state and non-state power, multiple actors and traditions of seafaring and exploration, and the agency of women, enslaved people, and other historically marginalised groups. Moreover, by expanding the focus to include environmental histories, this conference seeks to reconsider interrelations between humans and their marine surroundings.

This two-day conference will host senior experts and early career researchers in a cross-disciplinary conversation aimed at critically rethinking the role of power in maritime history. Topics for discussion include, but are not limited to:

  • Asymmetrical power relations
  • Global actors and agency
  • Writing and discursive power
  • Gender and sexuality
  • Maritime power and the environment
  • Materiality and maritime encounters
  • Maritime encounters and spatiality
  • Resistance, mutinies, rebellions
  • Slavery and maritime labour