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Steamers, Quarantines, and Dams: Building Infrastructure on the Lower Danube and in the Black Sea: Late 18th and 19th Centuries

Fri, June 14, 3:00 to 4:45pm, University of Zagreb, Room A107

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel aims to explore the intertwined relation between empires and infrastructural development along the Lower Danube and in the Black Sea. In a region in which the Habsburg, Ottoman and Russian Empires often clashed, infrastructures had on the one hand the purpose to secure borders and keep unwanted intruders outside, while on the other hand, they were built to increase trans-imperial mobility and exchanges. In more general terms, infrastructural projects and technologies of the time provided governments (and in some cases international organizations) with new opportunities to exercise power and intensify the use of territory. However, the story of river regulation, international shipping networks and quarantine systems shows that building infrastructures was a highly contested process in which central governments, local authorities and technical experts often pursued different agendas. Furthermore, the panel also sheds light on the ambivalent relationship between human artifacts, “nature” and narration, be it in form of water, infectious diseases or steamers. And finally, another line of inquiry refers to the users of infrastructure (such as migrants, travelers, shipping companies) and how they appropriated and sometimes repurposed the new constructions and gave them additional meaning as backward, Oriental or exceptional.

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