Illicit trafficking in the Mediterranean : A critical evaluation of sources (1870s-1960s)

Programme

Thursday, October 2, 2025

14 h 30 – 15 h | Welcome & Introduction

P. Bourmaud, K. Gkotsinas, P. Salmon

15 h – 16 h 15 | Session 1 : Underworld Imaginaries

Chair : Phillipe Bourmaud (IFEA)

Fanciful Sources and Anti-Cannabis Sentiments : Doing Drug History with Orientalist Legacies

Haggai Ram (Ben-Gurion University)

Archiving the Illicit Narcotics Trade in the Late Ottoman and Interwar Eastern Mediterranean

Mitchell Bacci (Harvard University)

16 h – 16 h 30 | Coffee break

16 h 30 – 17 h 45 | Session 2 : Smuggling Trails

Chair : Vincent Benedetto (université de Rouen-Normandie, INALCO-GRHIS)

How Do We Approach the “Invisible” ? Methodological Approach and Sources for the Study of Inter-Imperial Smuggling in the Port of Odessa (1853–1914)

Anna Sydorenko (Institute for Mediterranean Studies-FORTH)

Reading Between the Shipping Lines : Stowaways, Seamen, and Smugglers in and out of the Archive

Daniel-Joseph MacArthur-Seal (Scuola Superiore Meridionale)

Friday, October 3, 2025

9 h 45 – 10 h | Welcome

10 h – 12 h | Session 3 : Illegality in the Making

Chair : Alexis Rappas (Koç University)

Methodology and Chance in Research of Illegal Trade

Mogens Pelt (University of Copenhagen)

Between Surveillance and Civilizing Mission : International Organizations and Sex Work in 1920s Salonica

Dimitris Mitsopoulos (Columbia University)

Securing the Empire : Ottoman Intelligence and Surveillance Networks against Illegal Arms Trafficking at the Turn of the 20th Century

Arda Akıncı (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)

12 h – 14 h | Lunch break

14 h – 16 h | Session 4 : Looking for Agency

Chair : Kostis Gkotsinas (National Hellenic Research Foundation)

The “Underworld” and the Old Port : From Imaginaries of Transnational Crime to Social Realities of the Traffic in Women, 1920s-1950s.

Sarah Frenking (Université de Genève)

Scattered Lives : The Problem of Experiences and Agency in the Study of Illegal Trade

Andreas Guidi (INALCO)

“Trading with the Enemy” : Information Gathering and the Dialogical Archive of Contraband Trade in Greek Macedonia during the First World War 

Paris Papamichos Chronakis (Royal Holloway University)

16 h – 16 h 30 | Coffee break

16 h 20 – 18 h | Session 5 : Coworking-Collective Overview of Sources

Chair : Pierre Salmon (ENS-PSL - IHMC)