This project aims to analyze the phenomenon of multiculturalism in four premodern Mediterranean port cities. The research uses three identity markers (foodways, clothing, and language) to chart how differences in the political and physical environments affected the balance between marking and hybridizing identities in the port cities of Izmir, La Valletta, Livorno and Marseille. Although very different among themselves, these four cities, placed
on a maritime trading route cutting the Mediterranean from east to west, shared a highly developed cultural, ethnical, and religious pluralism. The comparative analysis adopted sheds light on the concept of pluralism in the premodern Mediterranean space, explaining how members of the same group handled coexistence following different strategies. In the project, identity is primarily intended as ‘a way of being and doing’, a way of making things in everyday life involving material practices. The concreteness of this aspect of identity leads to an act of self-positioning with respect to other individuals who are recognised as similar or different according to the way in which they do things. While inquiring into the way foreigners used material practices for channeling and expressing their cultural belonging, MedRoute highlights the role played by the political authority in determining the balance of acculturation. In fact, the adapting strategies of foreigners were deeply conditioned by the state’s attitude towards otherness. In the field of Mediterranean studies, the crucial role played by the political factor appears to have been neglected so far in favor of a greater emphasis on economic dynamics. From this perspective, MedRoute enters into the historiographical debate on the conceptual unity of the Mediterranean and proposes an interpretative model that can be fruitfully applied to the study of cultural pluralism in other border spaces. This project is deeply meaningful for nowadays society, since it addresses the problem of cultural coexistence and the role of political authority in enhancing welfare though the exploitation of the potential expressed by cultural diversity. In focusing on how political authority determined historical forms of pluralism, it reveals the ethical role of politics in assuming tolerance as a tool for fostering a more vibrant and resourceful society. In stressing the leading role played by the state and on how this is reflected by the attitude of foreigner dwellers living away from their homeland, MedRoute wishes to demonstrate the functionality of multicultural policies in enhancing civil welfare, also by the conscious use of ad-hoc policies that, ultimately, portrait pluralism as a resource for the society and not as a danger for the receiving country's perceived identity.
