Pastoral Communities in Southeast Europe (1400-1600)

This project studies pastoral communities as socio-economic key actors in Herzegovina, Dalmatia and Crete on a broad basis of archival source material. Adopting methodological tools of both history and anthropology, special focus is put on three intersected aspects: 1) the leeway of pastoral communities predefined by governance and law; 2) their seasonal routine; and 3) their socio-economic interaction with ruling elites and urban and rural population. In this light, the project aims at examining pastoralists and pastoral communities as socioeconomic actors, detaching them from existing nationally narrowed patterns of interpretation and elaborating their role in the wider pre-modern South-Eastern European context.

The project also makes an important contribution to current public debates on social mobility, socio-cultural affiliation and economic interaction just as cultural heritage, material culture and environmental history, particularly the history of human-animal relations. It is planned, amongst others, to publish its research results in a collective volume and in scientific journal articles as well as to enter into a science-based dialogue with the interested public on environmental history issues in pre-modern South Eastern Europe.