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- Convenors:
-
Srinivas Reddy
(Brown University)
Pedro Pombo (Malta University)
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- Location:
- Bloco 1, Sala 0.09
- Start time:
- 12 July, 2017 at
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
Offering new, transdisciplinary perspectives in the study of oceanic connections, we seek to understand the often invisible populaces who took part in multifarious activities of resistance and adaptation that counterbalanced the order of centralised colonial power in the Indian and Atlantic oceans.
Long Abstract:
Long before European colonialism, several well-travelled maritime routes and trade networks had already been securely established in the Indian Ocean, connecting disparate littoral communities from Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Often mediated by Muslim merchant enterprises, these commercial alliances engendered an extraordinary circulation of people, cultures and goods. European colonial networks, especially under the Portuguese and British, disrupted and reshaped these existing routes while widening maritime connectivities by directly linking the Indian and Atlantic oceans.
Despite the new and expansive colonial administrative apparatus that endeavored to regulate the movement of peoples and goods, we see the unwieldy shapelessness of the oceanic seascape as a metaphor for multiple decentered modes of contesting centralised colonial systems. Various forms of resistance such as rebellion, piracy, and the development of alternative trade systems were used by several indigenous communities to oppose new structures of oceanic power. We propose to look at such practices of defiance within wider maritime connections, taking into account alternative narratives that highlight a dynamism that colonial administrations could not control.
In particular we hope to explore the fluid nature of port cities, the shift in centres of production and the rapid adaptation of alternative systems of exchange with a focus on understudied communities who traversed the oceans under the colonial shadow. Offering new, transdisciplinary perspectives in the study of oceanic connections, we seek to understand the often invisible populaces who took part in multifarious activities of resistance and adaptation that counterbalanced the order of centralised colonial power.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
People of African origin in India have fallen under the category of slaves and subsequently vulnerable tribes. Yet, when we approach them in Gujarat from an anthropological perspective we are confronted with contradictions related to these classifications.
Paper long abstract:
According to Obeng, although coming from different states from East Africa at different periods, the Africans arrived in India from the eighth and ninth centuries until the twentieth century (Obeng 2002). Muslim Arabs first led them to coastal cities of the Indian subcontinent, and some centuries later English, Dutch and Portuguese charted them in this transoceanic circuit.
The Portuguese have reportedly brought Africans to India as slaves, especially to the Portuguese colonies of Goa, Daman and Diu, where they named them derogatory as Caffre, Abyssinian and Habshi, as the British did in other parts of India (Chauhan 1995). To many Indians, the term Habshi permutes with Sidi to refer to people of African origin.
Eventually, people of African origin in India would follow under the category of slaves and subsequently of vulnerable tribes. Yet, when we approach Gujarat from an anthropological perspective we are confronted with contradictions related to these classifications.
Grounded on the Siddis of Saurashtra, I aim at deconstructing these contradictions, which has persistently stigmatised people of African origin in Western India.
Paper short abstract:
My objectives in this paper, are to understand the trials and tribulations of the Siddi community in Haliyal. Based on my field research, conducted in two short spells in December 2016 and January 2017 in Haliyal, as well through previous established written works I seek to uncover what it means to be Siddi.
Paper long abstract:
There are about 250,000 Afro-Indians i.e Indians of African origin, in India, settled in the state of Gujarat bordering Pakistan, and in the states of Andhra Pradesh in south central India, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala in the south, and the former Portuguese territories of Daman, Diu and Goa. The Afro-Indians are generally known as Sidi/Siddi/Sidhi or Habshi/Habsi. One way or the other, the Siddis are represented as distant, the epitome of alterity, both from a geographic and from a social and religious perspective. Since the Siddi community is spread over large parts of southern India with each community possessing distinct characteristics shaped by the region in which they have been living, I chose to focus my study on the Haliyal district of Karnataka. My objectives in this paper based on my field research, conducted in two short spells in December 2016 and January 2017, as well through previous established written works is to understand what it means to be Siddi i.e if it constitutes a social stigma, the question of education for the Siddis, the work scenario and finally briefly analyse how religion is practiced among the Siddi Christians and the influence of religion on their lives.
Issues of citizenship and national belonging, social and political agency will inevitably impose themselves to my analysis.
Paper short abstract:
The decline of maritime trading from Diu, in the late 1800s, exposed the weak Portuguese control on the trading in this territory. Analysing migration to Mozambique of the weavers’ community we observe how lives across the Indian Ocean navigated relatively apart colonial intentions
Paper long abstract:
Diu, on the coast of Saurashtra in Western India and under Portuguese dominance until 1961, was a strategic port connecting the subcontinent hinterland with Eastern Africa and home to a multiplicity of communities engaged in oceanic trade. For centuries, diverse maritime routes developed by a constellation of communities belonging to different social, religious and linguistic backgrounds. Diu became, thus, a place of convergence of this fluid cultural landscape until the industrialization of cotton weaving promoted by the British the decline of its maritime trade. This deeply affected the communities of Gujarati or Portuguese India origin established in Mozambique, the main connection between Diu and Eastern Africa.
Although these maritime routes were seen as crucial nodes of Portuguese empire in Asia and Africa, the colonial state struggled to order and control the highly dynamic networks established in the Indian Ocean.
Sustained by ethnographic and archival research, this presentation shows how the decline of maritime trading from Diu exposed the lack of Portuguese control on the trading routes, commodities and even in the taxes collected in this territory. Local communities were able to respond to a fast changing panorama though their own initiative with new migratory connections with Mozambique. One of those social groups is the weavers' community, Vanza, whose role in Mozambican trade, and later postcolonial connections with European countries, is still to be studied examined. Though their migratory initiatives we observe how lives across the Indian Ocean navigated relatively apart colonial intentions, pursuing different winds and tides
Paper short abstract:
Considering characters like the English pirate Henry Avery, I seek to explore how the Mughal imperium was being assailed by sea through acts of aggression on the part of so-called European pirates who, incidentally, were simultaneously defying the strictures of their own state-sponsored colonialisms.
Paper long abstract:
The vast Mughal empire that spread over much of South Asia was politically anchored in capital cities like Agra and Delhi, deep in the interior of the subcontinent and far from the realm's oceanic coastlines. Nonetheless, maritime connections constituted an important part of the Mughal economy of goods and people, and therefore became a expedient locus to contest imperial authority. In the context of practices of defiance, I seek to explore how the Mughal imperium was being assailed on the Indian Ocean through acts of aggression on the part of so-called European pirates who, incidentally, were simultaneously defying the strictures of their own state-sponsored colonialisms. In particular I wish to consider characters like the English pirate Henry Avery who in 1695 captured the famous Ganj-i-Sawai trading dhow that belonged to the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. The rich booty onboard, along with the many Haji pilgrims returning from Mecca, were bound for Gujarat, specifically the port of Surat, a critical entry point that connected the Mughal empire to the western Indian Ocean. By attacking an imperial convoy of some twenty-five Mughal ships, Avery and his six-ship pirate coalition were directly challenging Mughal authority by disrupting the empire's essential maritime connections to the west. In the context, I hope to interrogate the notion of piracy and the label of being a pirate, as well as the ways in which multiple social, economic, religious and political agendas intertwine in specific acts of imperial defiance.
Paper short abstract:
After the Opium War, Qing China became a victim of British imperialism. However, as the British proved effective in suppressing piracy, the Qing decided to cooperate with the British, and in doing so found a means accommodating an encroaching imperialist power.
Paper long abstract:
With the colonisation of Hong Kong, which became the headquarters of the East Indies and China Station of the Royal Navy, the British began their efforts to suppress piracy in the China Seas in earnest. However, the colonisation of Hong Kong was achieved through an act of maritime depredation against Qing China, which sometimes considered the British intrusion an act of piracy. Furthermore, as the victims of British actions against piracy off the China coast were often Chinese subjects, the Royal Navy's anti-piracy expeditions can be seen as a violation of Qing sovereignty. Despite the intrusiveness of the British suppression of piracy, many Qing officials proved willing to cooperate in these efforts. Indeed the most effective anti-piracy expeditions were those in which British ships were guided and supported by Qing officials. Thus, while the Qing were victims of maritime depredation in the form of the Opium War and gunboat diplomacy as well as piracy of the traditional sort, they were able to use Chinese piracy as a means of co-opting British naval power to Qing control of the China seas. By focusing on the Qing reactions to British suppression of piracy, this paper discusses cooperation between Qing and British officials as a sort of modus vivendi in which the Qing were able to accommodate and indeed benefit from an encroaching colonial power.