The two-day workshop was part of a project which aimed at constituting a research group dealing with the 'forging of administration'. This rather sibylline phrase points to an endeavour to address the issue of faked and forged documents as a pathway for investigating administration backstage, in a variety of imperial, national or local situations. Our disciplinary span straddled historical, anthropological and sociological perspectives, along with legal or literary ones. We also strived to maintain a diachronic approach, as a way to interweave aspects of past and present administration, in former empires as in the states which took over. While first inspired by an analysis focused on Ottoman and post-Ottoman case studies (in which both the workshop's organizers share a primary interest), the idea also is to bring about a comparative criss-crossing of variously situated studies.
Administration produces idiosyncratic ideologies and singular behaviors; it also enacts ad hoc logics of writing and reading. When relating to it, the ‘administered’ ones contrive particular sets of abilities and competences: i.e., they develop techniques of accommodation-, patronage- and favor-securing. Fakes and forgeries are part and parcel of this large body of administrative knowledge and know-how which one needs to tease out. They are to form the privileged topic of inquiry during the Berlin meeting.
Several dimensions were explored and intertwined:
- the forged documents themselves, and their characteristics;
- their users and producers, be they from within oroutside the administrative circles;
- the counter-measures developed by authorities fordevising fakeproof items
Schedule:
Wednesday, June 18
9 am
Introduction: Marc Aymes & Benoît Fliche
Session 1: Forgeries in Many Guises
10 am — 11.15 am
Elias Kolovos (University of Crete), "Forging Ottoman Administration: Examples from the Christian Orthodox Monasteries of Mount Athos" | §Falsifier l’administration Ottomane. Exemples en provenance des monastères chrétiens orthodoxes du Mont Athos"
discussed by Magdi Guirguis (“Europe in the Middle East – The Middle East in Europe”, Berlin Free University) & Benoît Fliche (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris)
11.30 am — 12.45 pm
Élise Massicard (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris), "Contourner l’administration locale en Turquie. L’exemple d’Adana" | "Bypassing local administration in Turkey: the Adana example"
discussed by Nora Lafi (Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin) & Martha Mundy (London School of Economics)
Session 2: Uses and Misuses
2.30 pm — 3.45 pm
Güneş Isiksel (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris), "The honour of the state. Uses and misuses of the Ottoman sultans’ symbols of legitimacy" | "L'honneur de l'État. Usages et mésusages des symboles de la légitimité des sultans ottomans"
discussed by Magdi Guirguis ("Europe in the Middle East – The Middle East in Europe", Freie Universität Berlin) & Yael Navaro-Yashin (University of Cambridge)
4 pm — 5.15 pm
Marc Aymes ("Europe in the Middle East – The Middle East in Europe", Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin), "Fakes and forgeries in the 19th century Ottoman Mediterranean" | "Faux et usages de faux en Méditerranée ottomane au XIX e siècle"
discussed by Elias Kolovos (University of Crete) & Pascale Laborier (Université de Picardie, Amiens / Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin)
Thursday, June 19
Session 3 Border Crossing
9.30 am — 10.45 am
Catherine Gousseff (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris / Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin), "Les transferts de populations liés au changement du tracé des frontières polono-ukrainiennes" | "Population transfers at redesigned PolishUkrainian frontiers"
discussed by Benoît Fliche (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris) & Christiane Reinecke (Humboldt-Universität, Berlin)
11 am — 12.15 pm
Jeanne Hersant (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg), "The 'self-forging' of Turkish administration with regard to the settlement of migrants from Western Thrace" | "Les usages de l’a-légalité par l’administration turque : la gestion des migrants originaires de Thrace occidentale"
discussed by MarcAymes ("Europe in the Middle East – The Middle East in Europe", Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin) & Nora Lafi (Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin)
Session 4: Sham States?
2 pm — 3.15 pm
Yael Navaro-Yashin (University of Cambridge), "The Make-Believe Environment and Its Objects: Affect in the Realms of Space, Law, and Administration" | "Le faire-semblant et ses objets: affects spatiaux, juridiques et administratifs"
discussed by Marc Aymes ("Europe in the Middle East – The Middle East in Europe", Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin) & Christiane Reinecke (Humboldt-Universität, Berlin)
3.30 pm — 4.45 pm
Benoît Fliche (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris), "Identités des administrés et administration turque" | "Administered identities in Turkey"
discussed by Élise Massicard (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris) & Martha Mundy (London School of Economics)
5 pm — 6 pm
Conclusions