Circulations féminines et appartenances croisées en Méditerranée

Abstract

At the time of the publication of the Histoire des femmes en Occident, historiography of the Mediterranean world was very different from what it is today. Visible dynamics in terms of circulation, and mobility, were essentially European. They were also male. Thus historians began to be interested in the phenomenon of European defectors in Islam ( “renegades”) on the assumption that women could have in these contexts no other fate but of captives, that is of a passive and unique destiny. As for Muslim women, they imagined them even less able to afford mobility in Europe. Global history or connected history, and more widely the changes in the historiographical research in the direction of greater mutual interaction of societies in the Mediterranean and elsewhere, have led to reconsider completely the topic of circulation in the Mediterranean world, including the perspective of gender. This paper will highlight some recent historiographical issues giving some bibliographic prospects and suggesting research paths still little explored in this Mediterranean history.