Mediterranean migration after WW II : bridge or barrier?

Abstract

The Mediterranean has always been viewed as either a bridge or a barrier, depending on the spheres of human interaction or the time periods concerned. Thus, since times immemorial the Mediterranean Sea has been an important trading highway allowing for the circulation not only of goods but also of technologies, such as navigation techniques, as well as ideas, including the alphabet, religions and philosophical concepts among its riparian peoples. It has also been a space of shared cultural practices as manifest in common diets, architecture, agriculture, music and even social customs. On the other hand, the Mediterranean has been characterised by important divisions. For example, since the advance of Islam along its southern and eastern shores, it has come to be seen as a major fault line between Christian Europe and the Muslim world. In economic terms, the Mediterranean is nowadays also an important dividing line between a rich and prosperous north and a much less developed south. Finally, as an area of intense conflict, it has seen numerous wars and conquests, between empires, states and other political entities located along its shores.