ABSTRACT
It is commonplace to locate the First Global Age in the period between 1500 and 1800 and present the European Overseas Expansion as one of the main levers of such process. However, interactions occurred locally, and many localities were involved in the process, besides Europe and the European agents. Recent and not-so-recent historiographic alleyways have stressed how cross-cultural and cross-imperial analyses and how theories of cooperation and self-organisation have to be taken into consideration in order to understand the dynamics and the outputs arising from such a globalisation process. This chapter will argue that the achievements required by the building of such global transferences depended mostly on intermediation agents, performing as formal and informal brokers and go-betweens. Following the virtuous path opened long ago by Michael Pearson, this contribution will develop an empirical analysis of the performance of such agents, on the Indian Ocean and the area comprising the Portuguese State of India for the period 1500 to 1700, on the domains of economy, society and knowledge transfer. Our analysis will include the role of women in such dynamics.
