Preliminary Programme

Wed 23 April
    8.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Thu 24 April
    8.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 17.30

Fri 25 April
    8.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Sat 26 April
    8.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

All days
Go back

Wednesday 23 April 2014 8.30 - 10.30
W-1 MAT03 Global Luxury Commodities: Production, Exchange, Consumption and Valuation
Hörsaal 50 second floor
Networks: World History , Material and Consumer Culture Chair: Beverly Lemire
Organizer: Karin Hofmeester Discussant: Beverly Lemire
Bernd Stephan Grewe : Towards a Global History of Luxury: Transcultural and Decentered Perspectives on a Global Phenomenon
Luxury is a global phenomenon. (European) books and calligraphy in China, jewels and diamonds in South Asia and Europe, glass beads and Indian textiles in Africa, are or were luxury goods. Nearly all societies know objects whose value is not measured by usefulness and whose possession means more than the ... (Show more)
Luxury is a global phenomenon. (European) books and calligraphy in China, jewels and diamonds in South Asia and Europe, glass beads and Indian textiles in Africa, are or were luxury goods. Nearly all societies know objects whose value is not measured by usefulness and whose possession means more than the usual possession of objects by its members. But luxury does not only exist in the form of objects; just as important are luxurious practices fulfilling similar social and cultural functions.
Different societies and within these different social groups developed own material cultures and possessed a specific social logic attached to objects, practices and ideas. Through economic interaction, not only on a global level, but on regional and local levels too, these different material cultures got in contact with each other and stimulated economic exchange which was also shaped by differences in economic power. The relevance of these cultural issues has often been underestimated by global (economic) historians and studying luxuries and luxurious practices could thus provide useful new insights for the relevance of cultural differences for the functioning of global connections. The fundamental assumption is that the social and cultural context of the participants in a global chain of luxury commodities or luxurious practices was crucial for the way it was produced, traded, transported or marketed, but also how it was consumed. Through the analysis of specific social and cultural contexts, it will be possible to better understand the functioning of global connections.
As the global commodity chain approach can help to see the connections between the different segments in the chain, the ‘social biography’ approach (Appadurai) shows us how people in different societies, or even within one society in different social contexts, attributed different meanings to the same objects. The concepts of global commodity chains and of biographies of objects can serve as lenses through which to view the global entanglement without neglecting the diversity of socio-cultural contexts through which the objects passed.
Different societies and different groups within them have always had their own ideas about what is to be considered luxurious. Objects and practices thought to be so in one socio-cultural context are deemed profane and every day in another such context. Therefore it is difficult to define, what definition of luxury could be applied for global history. (Show less)

Karin Hofmeester : Diamonds: a Global Luxury Commodity Shaping Global Connections
By following the global diamond commodity chain from the early modern period onwards my presentation wants to illustrate how diamond production, trade and consumption connected a growing number of places, people and ideas in the world. It will show that diamonds - together with their merchants - traveled from ... (Show more)
By following the global diamond commodity chain from the early modern period onwards my presentation wants to illustrate how diamond production, trade and consumption connected a growing number of places, people and ideas in the world. It will show that diamonds - together with their merchants - traveled from the mines in India to Europe, and vice verse. Furthermore polishers traveled, within Europe, but also from Europe to India and Persia. From an economic point of view, the presentation wants to show that even in the early modern world a global diamond market existed, with prices determined by global supply and demand.In this global market, local meanings, valuations and tastes played an important role. Consumers in different parts of the world had different tastes in types of cuts styles of jewellery, each according to the cultural, social and even political context they were used in. The economic importance of this luxury commodity and the global connections it determined can not be understood fully without taking the cultural aspect of local valuations into account. These local valuations were by no means static, connections could lead to new shapes and designs of diamonds and jewellery as well. In the end diamonds shaped global connections and global connections shaped diamonds. (Show less)

Karin Pallaver : "The Mysterious End of the World in Which Beads are Found under Ground": Venetian Glass Beads in 19th-Century East Africa
During his expedition in 1857 Richard F. Burton, the first European to travel into the interior of present-day Tanzania, was asked by some local chiefs about "White-land, the mysterious end of the world in which beads are found under ground […] (Burton, 1859, vol. I). Glass beads were one of ... (Show more)
During his expedition in 1857 Richard F. Burton, the first European to travel into the interior of present-day Tanzania, was asked by some local chiefs about "White-land, the mysterious end of the world in which beads are found under ground […] (Burton, 1859, vol. I). Glass beads were one of the main imports in 19th-century East Africa and were produced, if not at the end of the world, in a place situated quite far from East Africa, Venice. Here glass beads were seen as mere imitations of true pearls and gemstones, used as ornaments by "primitive" people all over the world. In 19th-century East Africa, however, glass beads were not simply used to produce ornaments, but were widely used as currency. The long network of supply automatically created a limit on the import of glass beads and therefore naturally regulated their circulation, making them particularly suitable for being used as currency. This paper uses a biographical approach to analyse the meanings, perceptions and uses of glass beads along their commodity chain in order to explore the changing patterns of the relationship between East Africa and the global market in the 19th century. (Show less)

Giorgio Riello : From Luxury to Fashionable Necessity: The Success of Cotton Textiles in the First Global Age
We are familiar with the success that Indian cotton textiles had across Asian markets since late antiquity. The arrival of European trades in the Indian Ocean in the early sixteenth century allowed Indian cottons to extend their reach to the Atlantic, to Europe, North America and West Africa. This is ... (Show more)
We are familiar with the success that Indian cotton textiles had across Asian markets since late antiquity. The arrival of European trades in the Indian Ocean in the early sixteenth century allowed Indian cottons to extend their reach to the Atlantic, to Europe, North America and West Africa. This is a story based on the popular appeal of what has been defined as the ‘first global commodity’ in which cheapness and affordability, rather than luxury status or high value made calicoes, chintzes and other cotton textiles successful worldwide. In this sense cottons are an ‘anti-luxury’. Yet this paper wishes to challenge this interpretation by focusing on three often-forgotten aspects. First, it shows how Indian cotton textiles came in a wide range of varieties, some of which were more ‘luxuries wares’ than popular commodities. This is the case for instance of the splendid cotton textiles used in the princely courts of India as tents and decorative furnishings. Second, the concept of luxury should be applied also to the rare and expensive textiles traded to Southeast Asia and treasured as heirlooms and used in ritual and religious occasions. These were ‘necessary luxuries’ that required considerable financial and emotional investment and were key to the lives of families and communities across time and space. Finally, this paper wishes also to reflect on the concept of ‘fragility of luxury’, that is to say how something deemed to be a luxury came to be ‘commodified’. This is the case of Europe where the importation of cotton textiles was confined to expensive and high-quality furnishing in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. However, in the course of the following century cotton became an item for fashionable use – as furnishing fabric but even more so as apparel. This shift from luxury to fashion is an important one as it did not happen across the world but was based on the specificity of the meaning attributed to cotton textiles in the West. A comparison between Europe and Japan will serve to see how different the use of Indian cotton textiles was at the two extremes of Eurasia. (Show less)



Theme by Danetsoft and Danang Probo Sayekti inspired by Maksimer