ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book considers how the mobility of art and material culture is intertwined with diplomatic, political, and trade networks in the international arena of the Mediterranean. It looks at the movement of people and objects as transformational. The book also considers modes of circulation and production, interchange between people and things, and things as extensions of and mediators between people. It analyses the value of the notions of mobility and cultural contact to the study of material culture in the Mediterranean context. The book shows that Mediterranean mobility was central to the practice of early photography. It seeks to address a broad range of scholars and students in art history, history, literature, anthropology, and other fields who work on cross-cultural encounters, Mediterranean studies, global history, material culture, Islamic art, Ottoman studies, Orientalism, postcolonial studies, and travel history and literature.
