South Asia’s Coastal Frontiers

2018 ◽  
pp. 210-228
Author(s):  
Sunil Amrith
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Environmental Footprint ◽  
Environmental Consciousness ◽  
Coastal Fisheries ◽  
Ecological History ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Longue Duree

This chapter explores the environmental history of coastal South Asia. The coast has been a liminal zone—ecologically, culturally, and economically. This chapter argues that the social and ecological history of coastal South Asia, over the longue durée, allows us to reintegrate histories of oceanic commerce, with terrestrial histories of the state’s expanding power over nature. The chapter explores two intertwined strands of coastal environmental history under colonial rule: the history of coastal fisheries, and the expanding environmental footprint of coastal India in an age of imperial globalization. The chapter concludes by examining the acceleration of coastal transformation from the 1970s, accompanied by rising environmental consciousness.

Social and Environmental History in the Anthropocene

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Warde
Keyword(s):  
Environmental History ◽  
Social History ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
Longue Duree ◽  
Longue Durée

This chapter takes seriously the notion of the ‘Anthropocene’—the concept of the period of history from which human activities have had global effects on the environment—and looks at it historically, across the longue durée, noting that the environment is itself a concept with a history of its own. The chapter argues that environmental history is very largely entwined with social history and that this poses a challenge for historians. Should we think of ‘the social’ and ‘the environmental’ as two different (albeit connected) spheres, or should we reconceptualize what ‘society’ and ‘environment’ might mean, both historically and for the future?

Jumbos and Jumping Devils

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nisha P R
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Social History ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of

Jumbos and Jumping Devils is an original and pioneering exploration of not only the social history of the subcontinent but also of performance and popular culture. The domain of analysis is entirely novel and opens up a bolder approach of laying a new field of historical enquiry of South Asia. Trawling through an extraordinary set of sources such as colonial and post-colonial records, newspaper reports, unpublished autobiographies, private papers, photographs, and oral interviews, the author brings out a fascinating account of the transnational landscape of physical cultures, human and animal performers, and the circus industry. This book should be of interest to a wide range of readers from history, sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies to analysts of history of performance and sports in the subcontinent.

Cosmopolitan Capitalists and Colonial Rule. The business structure and corporate culture of the Swiss merchant house Volkart Bros., 1850s–1960s

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-44
Author(s):  
CHRISTOF DEJUNG
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Social History ◽  
Corporate Culture ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Positive Interactions ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Private Company ◽  
European Firm ◽  
Business Goals ◽  
History Of

Abstract This article examines the history of the Swiss merchant house Volkart Bros., which was one of the most important exporters of Indian raw cotton and one of the biggest trading firms in South Asia during the colonial period. The study allows for a fresh look at Indian economic history by putting forth two main arguments. First, it charts the history of a continental European firm that was active in South Asia to offer a better understanding of the economic entanglements of the subcontinent with the wider world, which often had a reach beyond the empire. This ties in with recent research initiatives that aim to examine the history of imperialism from a transnational perspective. Second, the history of a private company helps in developing a micro-perspective on the often ambiguous relation between the business goals of individual enterprises and colonial rule. The article argues that this may be evidence of the fact that capitalism and imperialism were two different, although sometimes converging, spatial structures, each with a distinct logic of its own. What is more, the positive interactions between European and Indian businessmen, fostered by a cosmopolitan attitude among business elites, point to the fact that even in the age of empire, the class background of actors could be more important for the establishing of cooperative ventures than the colour of their skin or their geographical origin. It is argued that this offers the possibility of examining the history of world trade in terms of global social history.

scholarly journals Caliphatism in the period of decline and collapse of the Ottoman Empire

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 327-337
Author(s):  
Svetlana A Kirillina ◽  
Alexandra L Safronova ◽  
Vladimir V Orlov
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Role ◽  
Muhammad Rashid Rida ◽  
Political Actions

The article analyses the historical role of the movement for defenсe of the Caliphate, which emerged in various regions of the Muslim world as a response to weakening and fall of the Ottoman Empire. The authors also focus on the social and political discussions of the 1920s - 1930s about the destiny of Muslim unity and the role of the future Caliphate. The article also deals with the transformation of conceptions of the Caliphate in the works of eminent ideologists and politicians of the Muslim world - Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi, Muhammad Rashid Rida and Abul Kalam Azad. The authors give an overview of the history of Caliphatist congresses and conferences of 1920s - 1930s. The aims and tasks of the Caliphatist movement among the Muslims of South Asia are also under study. The article examines the reaction of the South Asian princely elites to the weakening of the Ottoman state and explores the interrelation between pro-Ottoman sentiments of Caliphatists and the radicalization of anti-colonial struggle of Indian Muslims. A special attention is given to the role of leaders of Indian Caliphatists in preparation of the antiBritish uprisings in North-Western Hindustan. The authors also examine common and specifi c features of views and political actions of advocates and supporters of the Caliphate in the Middle East and in the Islamic communities of South Asia. The analysis of the source data reveales several patterns of reaction of Muslims in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia to the repudiation of the Caliphate by the Republican Turkey.

Beyond Recognition

2019 ◽  
pp. 84-124
Author(s):  
Sarah Pinto
Keyword(s):  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Married Life ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

One of the greatest sadnesses of married life for Mrs. A. was the loss of the lead role in a college production of the play Shakuntala. Mrs. A. identified closely with Shakuntala, a heroine whose story is typically told as an ethical narrative of recognition. Skanutala’s story is the most detailed and thoroughly explored myth in the case, and its moral lessons are part of a long history of establishing identities and ethics of reform in the midst of colonial rule, histories that shaped Mrs. A.’s own world and the social and political ideas available to her. But its dimensions also establish starkly gendered conditions for the ethical ideal of recognition. As Mrs. A. imagined life after marriage, she reimagined alternate versions of Shakuntala’s story, transforming a story of recognition into one containing the personal and political possibilities of non-recognition. She did so not through interpretation, but through a dancerly orientation that cast ethics as feeling, gesture, movement, play, and even artifice, reimagining not only the content of ethics, but the very form ethics might take.

History and the Militarized Landscape

2018 ◽  
pp. 162-184
Author(s):  
David Biggs
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Environmental Processes ◽  
Central Vietnam ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Global Discourse ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

The environmental history of war, especially its impacts on landscape, encompasses a much broader scope than the conflicts and the historiography of the late twentieth century. Ideas on the social and environmental processes of conflict draw from a much longer, global discourse. This chapter uses the ancient-to-modern conflict landscape of central Vietnam to argue for a multi-layered, broader analysis of the environmental history of conflict.

POVERTY'S PASTS: A CASE FORLONGUE DURÉESTUDIES

2018 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 399-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
RHIANNON STEPHENS
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Comparative Studies ◽  
Quantitative Data ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Internal Dynamics ◽  
Class Difference ◽  
History Of ◽  
Longue Duree ◽  
Longue Durée

AbstractThis article examines how historians have approached the history of poverty in Africa before European colonisation. From an earlier focus on the emergence of class difference to more recent studies on the emergence of poverty, scholars have demonstrated the longevity of economic inequality in Africa. This historiography counters a linear view of the growth of economic inequality and the idea that poverty is a necessary corollary of wealth. The article then considers how historians have studied the meanings of poverty within particular societies to the nineteenth century allowing us to move beyond the inadequacy of quantitative data. It ends by arguing for morelongue duréestudies of poverty in Africa with a focus on the qualitative and on the internal dynamics of particular societies. This will improve our knowledge about how colonial rule changed the experience and reality of poverty for people across the continent and form a basis for comparative studies.

The World the Bedouin Lived in: Climate, Migration and Politics in the Early Modern Arab East

2015 ◽  
Vol 58 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 21-55
Author(s):  
Astrid Meier ◽  
Tariq Tell
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
The Past ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Societal Level ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Marginal Zones

Environmental history provides a perspective from which we can deepen our understanding of the past because it examines the relationships of people with their material surroundings and the effects of those relationships on the individual as well as the societal level. It is a perspective that holds particular promise for the social and political history of arid and marginal zones, as it contributes to our understanding of the reason some groups are more successful than others in coping with the same environmental stresses. Historians working on the early modern Arab East have only recently engaged with the lively field of global environmental history. After presenting a brief overview of some strands of this research, this article illustrates the potential of this approach by looking closely at a series of conflicts involving Bedouin and other power groups in the southern parts of Bilād al-Shām around the middle of the eighteenth century.

scholarly journals Before the political cartoonist, there was the Vidusaka

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 91-109
Author(s):  
Snehal P. Sanathanan ◽  
Vinod Balakrishnan
Keyword(s):  
Visual Arts ◽  
Alternative Model ◽  
The Political ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Cultural Products ◽  
Political Role ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Cartooning ◽  
The Many

Political cartooning was one among the many cultural products that colonial rule introduced in India. This British legacy has been used to produce narratives about the nature and history of Indian cartooning. However, these narratives have, invariably, overlooked the distinctly Indian cultural ethos as well as the Indian satirical tradition. The paper proposes an alternative model by positing that in the Indian satirical tradition, the Vidusaka – the comic figure in Sanskrit drama - has been an antecedent to the political cartoonist in terms of the social and political role as well as the nature and purpose of the humour.      The paper also locates the principles of caricaturing in precolonial Indian visual arts, and presents the early vernacular cartoons as the point of convergence between the local satirical tradition and the western format of the political cartoon which laid the foundation for a modern yet specifically Indian sensibility

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