The organising entity is the Fondazione Paestum, which has a focus on comparative studies of colonial activity in the Mediterranean. The conference was just one of a series of extraordinary events and refurbishments that have taken place at Paestum recently; a second conference has just been published and a third is in preparation. The conferences are aligned with another major event at Paestum, and one of Italy's most important cultural tourism events, the Borsa Mediterranea del Turismo Archeologico (an international trade show for the travel and tourism industry). Paestum, a colony itself both in the sense of a Greek foundation, and then a Roman resettlement, is well suited therefore to host discussions that touch on mobility, hybridity and the interpenetration of culture as visible in the material record.