NWO- Between the Holy Land and the World. A connected history of Christian communities in the Near East via the unpublished Franciscan photographic collections (1900-1948)

The project ‘Between the Holy Land and the World’ proposed a connected history of the Christian communities in the Near-East (1900-1948) by means of a study of unpublished Franciscan and undervalued Dominican photographic collections. It challenged current narratives by showing the intersections and interactions of Arab Christians and the cultures of European countries in a variety of settings and problematizing the reception of European cultural and religious policies. In addition, it preserved, classify and make available unpublished and recently discovered photographs of Syrian and Palestinian Arab Christian life. It investigated the relationship between photography and social and religious transformations of Arab Christians, shed light on cultural aspects of the modernization process and analysed the links between westernisation and ‘Arabness’ processes for indigenous Christians.