Isthme

This project aims at developing a multidisciplinary research on the seizure and transformation of a significant portion of Egyptian soil (the Suez Canal region), through the action of a foreign capital company (the Compagnie universelle du Canal de Suez), that worked under a specific legal framework (a land concession under specifications) and within a complex political context (Egypt's overlapping statuses and dependencies all along the « long nineteenth century » : to the Porte until 1914, to British rule from 1882 on, to the Capitulatory system protecting non-Muslim minorities until 1937, etc.). From the start of the diggings of the Suez Canal in 1859, to its nationalization in 1956, an international commercial company, embedded in the Saint-Simonian utopian spirit, and with a marked organizational culture, created and managed, at the edge of the country, impressive infrastructure (ports, canals, bridges, etc.) and 3 new towns (Port-Saïd, Ismaïlia and Port-Tawfiq). It furthermore generated the development of large agricultural holdings reclaimed over the desert. Landscapes in the area underwent radical change. They belong today to the very first economic region in Egypt. The Company's undertakings had multiple impacts at various levels. At the local level, it worked as a planning agency for the whole region, within the boundaries of the conceded domain. It promoted, within towns, a welfare model combining assistance and control, and brought together populations of varied origins and social conditions : European engineers, doctors and managers, merchants and employees, Italian, Greek, Armenian, Egyptian workers, etc. The entreprise developed also a significant cultural activity, sponsored archaeological excavations, academic societies and museums, stimulated a local connoisseurship, and became a main partner of the national authorities in their cultural ventures at home and abroad. It more generally helped channelling French capital and entreprises to Egypt, and acted as an agent of technical innovation and change within the country. It is this complex history, both French, Egyptian and Mediterranean, that the present proposal wish to engage, through collaborative research bringing together researchers belonging to different disciplines (history, geography and architecture) and specialities (cultural, economic, social history, French studies and Middle Eastern Studies), and data collecting in a large range of French and European archives.