Questions of Trust in Pre-modern Global Encounters

Questions of trust are central to understanding pre-modern global encounters. Contact with others, as with interpersonal relations on board rickety ships traversing dangerous waters, required that one have some insurance—some trust, both in others (shipmates, investors and “savages”) and in technologies (astrolabes, compasses, sounding lines, and ships). No one discipline or methodological approach is sufficient to analyze these questions.  Indeed, the contingencies of historical circumstance within which specific encounters are embedded requires a methodological openness to interdisciplinarity if not theoretical improvisation.  My presentation will focus on just some of the possible tools—derived from sociological theory, economic history, the history of religion, the history of science and science and technology studies—that can be used to approach questions of credibility, insurance, faith and trust.