Mobile Matter: American Goods in the Early Modern Maghrib (1492-1659)

The MOMAT project restores the place of the Maghrib in the early modern material exchange across the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Covering the period from the late fifteenth century, with the inception of the Spanish conquest of the Americas, to the mid-seventeenth century and the fall of the Saadī Empire, MOMAT investigates how materials and knowledge stemming from the Spanish Americas were disseminated into North Africa. Specifically, the project traces the introduction of American foodstuffs, materia medica, intoxicants, and dyes, as well as the creation of local expertise about their use. Drawing on archival sources and surviving artefacts, MOMAT employs an innovative methodology which combines archival research, quantitative analysis, and research in museum collections. Connecting Iberian and Maghribi empires, the project aims to show that the influx of American goods transformed the economic, social, and intellectual life of the Ottoman and non-Ottoman Maghrib more profoundly than previously acknowledged. Moreover, MOMAT goes beyond the state of the art by reorienting the history of global material exchanges and consumption through the repositioning of the early modern Maghrib as a pivotal region in the early modern consumer revolution. Challenging a historiography typically centred on Asia and Western Europe, MOMAT aims to demonstrate that, as the meeting point of three different processes of imperial expansion (Iberian, Ottoman, and Saadī), North Africa emerged as a key but overlooked space of material innovation, where commodities proceeding from these three imperial spaces were used in conjunction. Through research, dissemination, and communication activities in the UK, North Africa, and continental Europe, the MOMAT project will enhance the Fellow’s research skills and expertise in the study of global material circulations and the history of the Maghrib.