Ports

""Rural communities in a globalizing economy: new perspectives on the economic integration of Roman Italy

As a part of the research project ‘Fora, stationes and sanctuaries, the role of minor centers in the economy of Roman central Italy’ (Groningen Institute of Archaeology, University of Groningen), we are organizing a two-day conference to be held on November 28 and 29, 2013 at the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome.
The conference will bring together scholars from different disciplines working on the economy of Rome, with a strong (but not exclusive) focus on the countryside of Roman Italy. Aim is to develop a dialogue between different (theoretical, top-down and data-driven, bottom-up) approaches to the rural economy, and to come to new, integrated ways to study its development in the globalizing Roman economy. Emphasis will lie on the economic backgrounds and circumstances that led to the integration of rural economies in a Mediterranean-wide system, including developments in agriculture (specialization, intensification), crafts production and industry (with an emphasis on minor centers and rural areas), and infrastructure (local road systems, waterways, ports).
The two-day conference consists of a keynote lecture introducing the general issues and themes to be addressed in the conference, three thematic sessions and a concluding keynote by an ‘external’ specialist. Each of the three sessions is led by an invited scholar who is asked to introduce the session through a keynote lecture, to prepare a short concluding synthesis to the session and to lead the final discussion. Each session consists of this keynote and four papers of 30 minutes each (including discussion time). We welcome papers that present new (particularly artefact-based) approaches; the papers should cover a variety of perspectives (ceramic, ecological, synthetic) and scales (from detailed case studies to (supra)regional syntheses).

Session 1 Developments in agriculture and their impact on the rural economy
This session focuses on agricultural developments (intensification, specialization, technological innovations, increase in scale) and their impact on the rural economy. Questions we want to address include:
When, where, and how did such developments take place? Are there regional or intraregional trends or divergences? What was the scale of production, and how widely were these products distributed? To what extent did specialization and intensification lead to increased wealth in the countryside, therewith promoting the integration of rural economies into larger (global) market systems?

Session 2 The non-agricultural economy: crafts, industry and trade in the countryside
This session focuses attention on non-agricultural economic activities in the countryside (crafts, industry, trade) and their contribution to economic development. Questions we want to address include:
Which types of crafts and industry took place in the countryside (including rural agglomerations/minor centres)? How was production organized, what was the scale and
distributional range of these products? How was trade organized? And to what extent did crafts, industry and trade lead to increased wealth and promote integration of rural economies into larger (global) market systems?

Session 3 Connecting rural communities
This session focuses on how rural communities became integrated in wider economic networks, looking at both the role of towns and developments in infrastructure as drivers for economic change. Questions we want to address include:
What was the role of towns in driving rural economic development and as intermediaries in exchange? When, where and by whom did investments in infrastructure take place? And what was the impact of infrastructural developments on rural economies, both on the productive and on the consumptive side?

Confirmed speakers:
Dr. Alessandro Launaro (University of Cambridge), Dr. J. Geoffrey Kron (University of Victoria), Dr. Kim Bowes (University of Pennsylvania), Prof.ssa Gloria Olcese (Università la Sapienza, Rome), Prof. René Cappers & Drs. Frits Heinrich (University of Groningen), Prof. J. Theodore Peña (University of California, Berkeley), Dr. Gijs Tol (University of Groningen), Dr. Emmanuele Vaccaro (University of Cambridge), Prof.ssa Sara Santoro (University of Chieti/Pescara), Prof. Michael Crawford (University College London), Dr. Rob Witcher (Durham University); Dr. Tymon de Haas (University of Groningen), Prof.ssa Marinella Pasquinucci (University of Pisa), Prof. Frank Vermeulen, Dr. Patrick Monsieur & Drs. Dimitri van Limbergen (Ghent University), Prof. Peter Attema (University of Groningen), Dr. Wim Jongman (University of Groningen) and Prof. Paul Erdkamp (University of Brussels).

Registration
You can register for the conference by sending an email to one of the conference organizers (see below). Please note that due to the limited space available at the conference venue potential participants are admitted on a 'first come first served' basis. A fee of 30 euros is required  and includes coffee and lunch during the conference.

For further information you can contact one of the conference organizers:
Tymon de Haas, t.c.a.de.haas@rug.nl ; phone nr. +31 50 3636719
Gijs Tol, g.w.tol@rug.nl ; phone nr. +31 50 3636719""

Climate change is anticipated to have a significant impact on coastal infrastructure, including navigational aids and ports. This paper presents the results of a vulnerability assessment of ports in Australia to climate change. Results reveal variable vulnerability in ports in the short and long term in relation to their exposure to climate change. However, this is offset by inherent adaptive capacity both in current climate change initiatives driven by ports, and in the selfconfidence of the industry to be able to adapt. We conclude with a reflection on the implications of these results for future ports analyses.

"Resumen: este artículo pretende ofrecer una valoración crítica acerca de algunas de las fuentes más idóneas relativas a esta temática por lo que respecta a las costas de Andalucía atlántica durante este período. En primer lugar, los portulanos y cartas náuticas medievales. En segundo lugar, memoriales descriptivos y tratados y manuales náuticos impresos. Finalmente, aquellas fuentes literarias que dan cuenta de actividades marítimas desarrolladas a lo largo del litoral andaluz tales como expediciones diplomáticas, militares y comerciales o cualquier tipo de viaje.
Palabras clave: Historia marítima, Corona de Castilla, Andalucía, Baja Edad Media, topografía costera, fuentes.

Abstract: This paper aims to provide a critical assessment about some of the more suitable sources related to this subject for the Andalusian Atlantic coast during this period. Firstly, medieval and early modern portolan charts. Secondly, nautical accounts and printed pilot-guides. Finally, narrative sources which take into account maritime activities developed across Andalusian littoral such as diplomatic, military and commercial expeditions or any kind of journey. 
Key words: Maritime history, Crown of Castile, Andalusia, Late Middle
Ages, coastal topography, sources."

This paper analyses the debate which has unfolded in the Baltic Sea Region regarding the reduction of sulphur content in vessel fuels, in order to illustrate how tightening environmental regulation challenges traditional forms of maritime governance. Using an interactive governance approach, this study reconstructs the process of sulphur emission reduction as a complex multi-stakeholder interaction in multiple contexts. The empirical investigation has drawn on documentary material from around the Baltic region, including Russia, and has applied the method of qualitative content analysis. The empirical study focuses on two interlinked questions: (1) How sulphur emission reduction policies are being anticipated by maritime industry, in particular by Baltic ports and (2) How port adaptation strategies are tied into Baltic local and energy contexts. Addressing these questions highlights the role of polycentricity in shipping governance and explains how the same universal international regulations can produce varying patterns of governance. The paper concludes that policy-making shall take an account of the fact that the globalized shipping industry is nevertheless locally and sectorally embedded.

This catalog was published in connection with the exhibition “Jaffa: Tor zum Heiligen Land” (Gate to the Holy Land) at the Bibelhaus Museum in Frankfurt, Germany from September 27, 2013 to May 18, 2014. The volume consists of 21 articles spanning historical and archaeological subjects from the Late Bronze Age to the Ottoman Period (ca. 1500 B.C. to 1917). The volume includes a catalog describing the 135 items displayed in the exhibit from excavations in Jaffa by the late Jacob Kaplan, the Israel Antiquities Authority, and the most recent excavations by the Jaffa Cultural Heritage Project, as well as a horde of gold Fatimid coins found in a Crusader contexts from Apollonia-Arsuf in 2012.

"This presentation will examine why European states (including, at times, the Iberian powers) persistently used chartered companies and limited partnerships as their primary instruments for acquiring and exercising imperial control in Asia. At first glance, such reliance is puzzling as these companies were only intermittently profitable – primarily when they were able to exploit conditions created by famines, wars or socio-political unrest - and all of them proved woefully inadequate to the tasks set for them. Still, as the history of Asia from 1600 to c.1800 clearly shows, chartered companies were founded time and again, and for many European imperial experiments proved to be the institution of choice. My paper at the workshop will survey the two main survivors - the EIC and VOC – as well as their many failed competitors in order to gain a clearer picture why chartered companies became the institution of choice. It will also identify some of their most distinctive common features (such as standing capital, tradable shares, and quasi-sovereign powers), and assess the extent to which markets or government policy/ interference ultimately sealed their fate or success."
"

Ports are key elements on trade organization in a regional and international scale. In West Africa, ports played a key role on the introduction of these territories on the international economic dynamics. In the case of Senegal, ports followed this tendency tied to the development of railways. However, the analysis of the Senegalese’s port system did not study the port transition process until the construction of the port of Dakar in 1910. This paper analyse this topic, showing a global perspective of the role played by Saint-Louis and Gorée in this transition process from an economy based on the slave trade to a market economy with extroverted features. It will be exposed the importance of the regional connections as hub elements of any port system.     

Seaports in West Africa introduced these regions into the global economy in the last third of the nineteenth century. They served as gateways for trade and such coaling stations to support the European expansion towards the interior, where the cash-crop culture and mining sectors were developed. The evolution on the field of transport technologies increased the importance of these nodes which focused the economic activity along the coast. These nodes constituted a port network which was interconnected in different scales. Hence, this port network was characterized by hierarchies, complementarities and centralities among the different ports, having different port functions which were integrated into the system. In this paper, we propose a methodological approximation in order to analyse le functioning of this port network. The main ports reviewed in this paper are Las Palmas and Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Canary Islands), Dakar, Gorée, St.Louis and Rufisque (Senegal), Mindelo (Cape Verde).

West African colonial ports had played a key role in the introduction of these territories into the international markets of raw materials. The port of Dakar (Senegal) focused the regional external trade, and it was converted in the main commercial infrastructure for the French West Africa. This importance was based on the concentration of investments to improve the port infrastructures and the development of the intermodal connections to the hinterland where the cash-crop production was growing. These modernization processes on the port infrastructures had an impact on the growth of the regional commercial activity, and oriented the Senegalese productive economy towards the export sectors, mainly colonial commodities. In this paper it will be exposed the main improvement phases developed at Dakar, linking them with the increased commercial activity and its predominant position over the region. In addition, it will be analyzed the main port institutions and the port administration model which were tied to the metropolitan interests and the status of Senegal as a colony.