The Oceans Become Global

2021 ◽  
pp. 16-38
Author(s):  
David Bosco
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Long Range ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
Ocean Governance ◽  
Hugo Grotius ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Inherent Nature ◽  
The Right ◽  
Do So

Aspects of ocean governance have ancient roots, including early anti-piracy campaigns and basic rules for maritime commerce. Sovereign rulers periodically attempted to control ocean space but usually lacked the means to do so. As Spain and Portugal mastered the art of long-range seafaring in the 15th century, however, they attempted to divide the world’s oceans between them, an effort that still stands as one of the most ambitious attempts to divide up the oceans. During that period, Portugal tried to exclude outsiders from the Indian Ocean and asserted the right to control all shipping in the area. Portuguese claims prompted objections from other European powers and set the stage for the Dutch lawyer Hugo Grotius to articulate the doctrine of a “free sea,” based on what he saw as the inherent nature of the oceans. While it faced several rebuttals, Grotius’s conception of the oceans mostly prevailed.

Sufi Cosmopolitanism in the Seventeenth-century Indian Ocean: Sharīʿa, Lineage and Royal Power in Southeast Asia and the Maldives

2018 ◽  
pp. 53-80
Author(s):  
A. C. S. Peacock
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
State Building ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Royal Power ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
The Right ◽  
Indian Ocean World

Peacock’s chapter examines the circulation of Seventeenth-century Sufi scholars to the ‘contested peripheries’ of the Indian Ocean. He argues that notable Muslim Sufi shaykhs did not travel to maritime kingdoms such as Banten, Aceh, and the Maldives to learn from locals, but rather to propagate ‘shariʿa-minded piety’ focused on ‘commanding the right and forbidding the wrong’. Peacock describes how the ambitions of religious scholars like the Syrian Qādirī preacher Muḥammad Shams al-Dīn intersected with early modern state-building in the Indian Ocean world. This chapter chronicles how Shams al-Dīn not only gained great political influence in Aceh, but was even made the actual ruler of the Maldives after his followers overthrew the sultan there. Peacock concludes that the cosmopolitanism of Sufi itinerants relied less on the fusion of pre-Islamic and Islamic practices than on universalist agendas of social transformation founded upon prophetic Sunna and enacted through the mechanisms of political coercion.

scholarly journals Pandemic: how to avoid panic?

2005 ◽  
Vol 04 (04) ◽  
pp. E ◽  
Author(s):  
Pietro Greco
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Risk Communication ◽  
Hurricane Katrina ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
The Right

The tsunami that took place on 26th December 2004 in the Indian Ocean and hurricane Katrina, that last August struck the Mexican Gulf, are two recent natural events that turned into catastrophes for mankind, causing several thousands victims. One of the reasons behind this can be traced back to the fact that useful information in the hands of scientists and experts did not reach the right people within the right time. A crushing defeat for risk communication was witnessed in these two recent events. All the more paradoxical since we live in what we like to name “the era of communication and information”.

History of Zanzibar to 1890

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdul Sheriff
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
East African ◽  
East African Coast ◽  
Swahili Coast ◽  
Cape Of Good Hope ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
City States ◽  
A Minor

The East African or Swahili coast is at the confluence between the continental world of Africa and the maritime world of the Indian Ocean, giving rise to a cosmopolitan culture. The Zanzibar archipelago is geographically at the center of the East African coast, and was ideally located in terms of the monsoons for trade and social interaction with the African mainland as well as across the Indian Ocean. The first golden age of the Zanzibar archipelago blossomed from the middle of the first millennium ce when transoceanic connections began to be forged between the western seaboards of the Indian Ocean as far as China in the east. It was spearheaded by Unguja Ukuu, followed by a number of ports on Pemba and Unguja, including Kizimkazi with its unique 12th-century Kufic inscription. The Portuguese intervened from the 15th century to monopolize and divert Indian Ocean trade to Europe via the Cape of Good Hope, although they did not succeed. Nevertheless, they disrupted the former patterns of trade and social interactions in the Indian Ocean. After the Portuguese interlude, the Swahili civilization tried to recover its initiative, but it could no longer hold its own. The Swahili city states had to seek assistance from Oman. Zanzibar developed as the seat of a vast commercial empire in the 19th century based on the clove economy on the islands and commerce that extended from the Indian to the Atlantic Ocean, and a vast hinterland that extended as far as the African Great Lakes. It flourished, but it could not withstand the onslaught of the European colonial powers in their scramble for Africa to monopolize its natural resources and markets for their industrial revolution. With the colonial partition of Africa, Zanzibar was reduced to a minor British protectorate by 1890.

Ocean Governance and Hybridity

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 154-175
Author(s):  
Sybille Reinke de Buitrago ◽  
Patricia Schneider
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
International Law ◽  
Hybrid Approach ◽  
Frequent Occurrence ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Ocean Governance ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
International Interaction

Abstract In interstate and international interaction, norm breaking is a frequent occurrence and cause of conflict. This article discusses how to deal with such behavior when it occurs in maritime space. The particularities of distinct maritime spaces and their level of regulation provide distinct opportunities. States may then take a hybrid approach by taking into account international law in more regulated areas, but seeking alternatives in less regulated ones. To discourage norm breaking and to promote cooperative approaches toward shared challenges in maritime space, stronger ocean governance that considers hybridity seems important. The article discusses these aspects in the three cases of the Arctic, the Indian Ocean, and the Mediterranean and derives first lessons for strengthened ocean governance.

Weapons Used Aboard Ming Chinese Ships and Some Thoughts on the Armament of Zheng He’s Fleet

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-224
Author(s):  
Elke Papelitzky
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Long Range ◽  
Ming Dynasty ◽  
New Technology ◽  
General Information ◽  
Naval Warfare ◽  
Archaeological Data ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
The Ming Dynasty

Abstract Zheng He’s fleet fought several battles during his seven voyages to the Indian Ocean. The ships thus had to be equipped with powerful weapons. Unfortunately, the sources directly related to Zheng He’s voyages do not mention in detail the armament of Zheng He’s ships. More general information on the armament of Ming ships is, however, abundant. By examining military writings such as Qi Jiguang’s Jixiao xinshu and Mao Yuanyi’s Wubeizhi, as well as archaeological data in the form of weapons excavated from shipwrecks, this article aims to trace the development of the equipment on ships during the Ming dynasty. The article shows that ships carried a patchwork of gunpowder and non-gunpowder weapons composed of old technology alongside new technology. The use of non-gunpowder weapons also developed during the mid-Ming, with weapons specialized for naval warfare appearing and javelins replacing bows as the primary non-gunpowder weapons for long-range attacks. The article also reviews the few sources available about the weapons used on Zheng He’s fleet.

An International Legal Extravaganza in the Indian Ocean: Placing the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission outside the Framework of FAO

2007 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 485-515
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Director General ◽  
Vienna Convention ◽  
International Treaty ◽  
Legal Personality ◽  
Treaty Law ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
International Legal Personality ◽  
International Character ◽  
Do So

AbstractThe Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (established by treaty under Article XIV of the FAO Constitution) has tried to amend its own Agreement to place itself outside the framework of FAO in order to deal more effectively with "fishing entities". However, its attempts to do so have been thwarted in part by the refusal of the Director-General of FAO to circulate proposed amendments. This is evaluated and found to be contrary to Article 76.2 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which refers to the international character of a depositary and the need for impartiality. In addition, the Secretariat of FAO has asserted that it can be achieved only by a cumbersome treaty process involving termination of the present treaty and Commission and establishing a new treaty and new Commission. The paper evaluates the arguments for this position in the light of international treaty law, including the practice in other treaty bodies. It concludes that the arguments in support of such a convoluted approach are fundamentally flawed. Finally, the paper considers briefly whether the Commission has international legal personality, and concludes that it does.

Cartographies of the Untimely in Postcolonial Historical Realism

2019 ◽  
pp. 29-64
Author(s):  
Greg Forter
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
Frame Of Reference ◽  
Indentured Servitude ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Do So

Barry Unsworth’s Sacred Hunger and Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies develop cognitive-affective maps of empire that reveal its totalizing ambitions. They deploy realist techniques to do so while displaying an intense self-consciousness about such techniques’ limitations. The maps they draw link the Atlantic world (and slavery) with the Indian Ocean (and indentured servitude). This angle of vision moves the historical novel’s frame of reference beyond both the nation and the mono-oceanic paradigms that have emerged as alternatives to nation-based understandings. Finally, and drawing especially on the work of Dipesh Chakrabarty, the chapter shows that the novels retrieve from historicist time the inassimilable, heterotemporal residues of utopian alternatives to the colonial, which draw upon while radically refashioning “premodern” and pre-secular modes of affinity.

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