Premodern Translocals: German Merchant Diaspora Between Kalmar and Northern German Towns (1250-1500)

This article explores translocal practices of German merchants settled in the late medieval town of Kalmar, Sweden. It focuses on the dual life of migrants, their simultaneous attachments to their places of origin and residence, and the significance of this splitting for the internal dynamics of diaspora. This case study also illustrates the importance of engagement with the material world for maintaining such dual relationships and prompts general exploration of the importance of material culture in diasporic and translocal lives. It discusses how things are used to fill the spaces of physical absence in the nodal points of translocal movement.