Maritime Colonization and Hinterland Populations in Greece

In a keynote address in Athens, Professor Irad Malkin will re‐examine the notion of “indigeneity” and propose a nuanced paradigm of “middle ground” interaction — one that transcends the reductive colonizer/colonized framework and reveals the complex realities of maritime settlement in antiquity.

History

In Greek colonization, islands and shorelines often became “middle grounds” where settlers and indigenous communities interacted in dynamic, ad hoc ways. At times, Greeks established poleis that dominated or subjugated hinterland groups; in other cases, mixed settlements and emporia emerged, fostering trade and cultural exchange. Traditional post‐colonial narratives cast these encounters as a binary: colonizers versus displaced “Indigenous” victims.

Speaker

Irad Malkin is emeritus Professor of Ancient Greek History at Tel Aviv University and Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Classics at the University of Oxford (2017-2026). He is a member of the Athens National Academy and a laureate of the Israel Prize for History (2014). His studies revolve around Greek religion, colonization, ethnicity, networks, and egalitarianism. His books include eight edited volumes and six authored books, among which are Religion and Colonization in Ancient Greece (1987), Myth and Territory in the Spartan Mediterranean (1994), The Returns of Odysseus: Colonization and Ethnicity (1998), Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Greece (2003), A Small Greek World: Networks in the Ancient Mediterranean (2011) and, with Josine Blok, Drawing Lots: From Egalitarianism to Democracy in Ancient Greece (2024).