ABSTRACT
Mediterranean studies typically are characterised by an acute ‘hyper-specialisation’ (Cherry 2004: 235-6) that discourages comparative research of the many material, cultural and socio-economic features and trends that overlap and interconnect in this region. Moreover, because much current fieldwork and research in the Mediterranean are typically concluded on a local or at most a regional scale and lack systematic comparison of distinctive cultural developments in different regions (cf. Alcock and Cherry 2004), there is ample scope for new perspectives on studying material culture. Engaging the themes of materiality, mobility and identity with the study of a wide range of objects and ideas should breathe new life into current theoretical and methodological approaches, facilitating new dialogues and understandings of transregional and trans-cultural practices in the Mediterranean. Migratory movements and colonial encounters have long constituted prominent
themes in Mediterranean and classical studies, but scholarly attention has remained largely focused on the colonisers’ expansion and achievements (e.g. Boardman 1980; Tsetskhladze 2006). ˆe local inhabitants of these colonised regions were considered simply as passive objects in these colonial situations, if they were given any attention at all. Only in recent years have their active involvement in and contribution to the colonial process been highlighted. In contrast, because recent accounts have tended to emphasise indigenous accomplishments and local resistance to the colonisers, few studies offer detailed examination of specific colonial situations that go beyond these stereotypical, binary oppositions to delve into the complex and dynamic contexts of social and cultural interaction (cf. van Dommelen 2002; VivesFerrándiz 2008). ˆe general insistence on using the term ‘colonisation’ rather than ‘colonialism’
further underscores a widespread reluctance to engage Mediterranean contact situations in cross-cultural comparisons (Dietler 2009: 20-3). One recent volume on Ancient Colonizations (Hurst and Owen 2005) is even reluctant to compare Greek colonialism with other colonial expansions, to consider the Greek ‘overseas settlements’ as colonial in any way or to explore questions of terminology (Owen 2005: 17: cf. Osborne 1998). Overall, alternative postcolonial perspectives on these contact and colonial situations have largely been avoided in the study of ‘ancient colonisation’ in the first millennium (van Dommelen 2006; Osborne 2008).
