Stockfish_Iceland_Gunnar-Hafdal_Wikimedia-commons
Of Fish, Fur and Ivory: James Barrett will explore the process and reality of ecological globalisation in the Middle Ages through the trade of stockfish (dried cod), fur and walrus ivory.

Keynote speaker: James Barrett

At NIKU's conference Nature and Culture in Medieval Towns James Barrett from Cambridge University will give a talk about ecological globalisation and the medieval town.

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James Barret_Cambridge University
James Barrett(Photo: Cambridge University)

James Barrett is Reader in Medieaval Archaeology at Cambridge University. At Nature and Culture in Medieval Towns 6-7 March 2019 he will give a keynote speech titled Ecological Globalisation and the Medieval Town: Of Fish, Fur and Ivory.

See detailed program for the conference here.

 

Abstract

Ecological Globalisation and the Medieval Town: Of Fish, Fur and Ivory

Ecological globalisation entails the (often inexorable) spatial displacement of our interface with nature. It creates interdependencies between rural (often indigenous) experts and cosmopolitan centres of consumption.

Although on-going, it is an ancient phenomenon that has ebbed and flowed in response to social, economic and demographic factors that unfolded among both town-dwelling consumers and rural producers.

Power was sometimes asymmetrical between these poles, but agency was always distributed.

This lecture explores the process and reality of ecological globalisation from the perspective of urban consumers and distant producers between the Viking Age and the end of the Middle Ages.

Its material focus is the trade of stockfish (dried cod), fur and walrus ivory. Norway’s medieval towns became central to these trades, within a network that extended across northern Europe and far beyond.

Read more about Nature and Culture in Medieval Towns here.

 

For additional information, please contact

Stefka Eriksen or

Elise Naumann

 

Conference registration