Global Encounters between China and Europe: Trade Networks, Consumption and Cultural Exchanges in Macau and Marseille (1680-1840). (GECEM)
The project is funded by the European Research Council as a Starting Grant (StG).
GECEM project seeks out new directions and engages primary challenges of Global History for the 21st century, including the role of China in the international community; its relations with western powers, mainly with Europe. The hegemonic position and/or leadership of this Asian giant cannot be fully understood if we do not also consider historical perspectives and the early origins of such relations. This intellectual challenge can be addressed, since the core and main aim of GECEM is to use new historical evidence from China and Europe during the early modern period to shed new light on big questions such as why China did not develop at the same economic levels than northwestern Europe in the first industrialization or why modern capitalism did not emerge in China. These are vital questions, first raised by social science theorists and scholars from the California School.
This project examines perceptions and dialogues between China and Europe by analysing strategic geopolitical sites which fostered commerce, consumption and socioeconomic networks between China and Europe through a particular case study: Macau, connecting with South China, and Marseille in Mediterranean Europe.
How did foreign merchant networks and trans-national communities of Macau and Marseille operate during the eighteenth century and contribute to somehow transfer respectively European and Chinese socio-cultural habits and forms in local population? What was the degree and channels of consumption of European goods in China and Chinese goods in Europe? These are the main questions to answer during this research to explore the bilateral Sino-European trade relations and how the trans-national dimension of exotic commodities changed tastes by creating a new type of global consumerism.