Creating a Cultural Repertoire Based on Texts

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 132-153
Author(s):  
Christopher D. Bahl
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Social History ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Western Indian Ocean ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Manuscript Transmission ◽  
History Of

AbstractThe early modern South Asian sultanate of Bijapur (9/15 th–11/17 th c.) represented a rich centre for the transmission of manuscripts by both the court and local Sufi communities. Thus far, Richard Eaton has mainly concentrated on prosopographical sources to write a social history of the Sufis of Bijapur. However, Arabic manuscripts as they survive in the Royal Library of Bijapur can provide a documentary perspective that testifies to the Deccan’s transregional connections with the wider Western Indian Ocean and the cultural practices transacted by Sufis in Bijapur. In this article, I focus on Sayyid Zayn ʿAbdallāh ibn al-Muqaybil’s (d. 1130/1718) manuscripts, transcribed during his travels from Yemen to Bijapur during the second half of the 17th century. I study the paratextual profile of these manuscripts to advance an argument on modalities of manuscript transmission through the transregional scholarly and Sufi networks of Bijapur. Thus, this study will exemplify the socio-cultural significance of manuscript circulation in the context of the early modern Deccan.

Mainstreaming Third-Gender Healers: The Changing Perceptions of South Asian Hijras

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pooja Jagadish
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Gender Group ◽  
Media Attention ◽  
Religious Significance ◽  
British Rule ◽  
False Identity ◽  
Third Gender

Mainstreaming is the act of bringing public light to a population or issue, but it can have a deleterious impact on the individuals being discussed. Hijras comprise a third-gender group that has long had cultural and religious significance within South Asian societies. Described as being neither male nor female, hijras were once called upon for their religious powers to bless and curse. However, after the British rule and in the wake of more-recent media attention, the hijra identity has been scrutinized under a harsh Western gaze. It forces non-Western populations to be viewed in terms of binaries, such as either male or female, and it classifies them by inapplicable Western terms. For example, categorizing a hijra as transgendered obfuscates the cultural significance that the term hijra conveys within their societies. Furthermore, media representations of hijras cause consumers to view themselves as more natural, while hijras become objectified as occupying a false identity. This has caused them to be pigeonholed within the very societies that once legitimated their existence and respected them for their powers. With their cultural practices being seen as outmoded, and their differences from Western people be- ing pointed out in the news and on television, hijras have faced significant discrimination and ridicule. After providing a discussion of relevant Western and non-Western concepts, I seek to describe hijras and the effects of mainstreaming on their lives. Finally, I offer a critique of cur- rent research on this population and provide solutions to improve their plight.

Editorial Introduction

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Editors of the JIOWS
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Western Indian Ocean ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Fourth Volume ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Complex Relationships ◽  
Indian Ocean World ◽  
Shed Light

The editors are proud to present the first issue of the fourth volume of the Journal of Indian Ocean World Studies. This issue contains three articles, by James Francis Warren (Murdoch University), Kelsey McFaul (University of California, Santa Cruz), and Marek Pawelczak (University of Warsaw), respectively. Warren’s and McFaul’s articles take different approaches to the growing body of work that discusses pirates in the Indian Ocean World, past and present. Warren’s article is historical, exploring the life and times of Julano Taupan in the nineteenth-century Philippines. He invites us to question the meaning of the word ‘pirate’ and the several ways in which Taupan’s life has been interpreted by different European colonists and by anti-colonial movements from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. McFaul’s article, meanwhile, takes a literary approach to discuss the much more recent phenomenon of Somali Piracy, which reached its apex in the last decade. Its contribution is to analyse the works of authors based in the region, challenging paradigms that have mostly been developed from analysis of works written in the West. Finally, Pawelczak’s article is a legal history of British jurisdiction in mid-late nineteenth-century Zanzibar. It examines one of the facets that underpinned European influence in the western Indian Ocean World before the establishment of colonial rule. In sum, this issue uses two key threads to shed light on the complex relationships between European and other Western powers and the Indian Ocean World.

Australianama

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samia Khatun
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
South Asian ◽  
South Asian Diaspora ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Asian Diaspora ◽  
Broken Hill ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Anglophone World ◽  
Indian Ocean World

Australian deserts remain dotted with the ruins of old mosques. Beginning with a Bengali poetry collection discovered in a nineteenth-century mosque in the town of Broken Hill, Samia Khatun weaves together the stories of various peoples colonized by the British Empire to chart a history of South Asian diaspora. Australia has long been an outpost of Anglo empires in the Indian Ocean world, today the site of military infrastructure central to the surveillance of 'Muslim-majority' countries across the region. Imperial knowledges from Australian territories contribute significantly to the Islamic-Western binary of the post- Cold War era. In narrating a history of Indian Ocean connections from the perspectives of those colonized by the British, Khatun highlights alternative contexts against which to consider accounts of non-white people. Australianama challenges a central idea that powerfully shapes history books across the Anglophone world: the colonial myth that European knowledge traditions are superior to the epistemologies of the colonized. Arguing that Aboriginal and South Asian language sources are keys to the vast, complex libraries that belie colonized geographies, Khatun shows that stories in colonized tongues can transform the very ground from which we view past, present and future.

Renaissance Mass Murder

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen D. Bowd
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social History ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Mass Murder ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
Italian Wars ◽  
Human Tragedy

Renaissance Mass Murder explores the devastating impact of war on the men and women of the Renaissance. In contrast to the picture of balance and harmony usually associated with the Renaissance, it uncovers in forensic detail a world in which sacks of Italian cities and massacres of civilians at the hands of French, German, Spanish, Swiss, and Italian troops were regular occurrences. The arguments presented are based on a wealth of evidence—histories and chronicles, poetry and paintings, sculpture and other objects—which together provide a new and startling history of sixteenth-century Italy and a social history of the Italian Wars. It outlines how massacres happened, how princes, soldiers, lawyers, and writers, justified and explained such events, and how they were represented in contemporary culture. On this basis the book reconstructs the terrifying individual experiences of civilians in the face of war and in doing so offers a story of human tragedy which redresses the balance of the history of the Italian Wars, and of Renaissance warfare, in favour of the civilian and away from the din of the battlefield. This book also places mass murder in a broader historical context and challenges claims that such violence was unusual or in decline in early modern Europe. Finally, it shows that women often suffered disproportionately from this violence and that immunity for them, as for their children, was often partially developed or poorly respected.

A View from Mecca: Notes on Gujarat, the Red Sea, and the Ottomans, 1517–39/923–946 H.

2017 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 268-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
MUZAFFAR ALAM ◽  
SANJAY SUBRAHMANYAM
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Red Sea ◽  
Rich Source ◽  
Main Interest ◽  
History Of ◽  
Indian Ocean World

AbstractThis article examines the history of Gujarat-Red Sea relations in the first quarter of a century after the Ottoman conquest of the Hijaz, in the light of Arabic narrative sources that have hitherto been largely neglected. While earlier historians have made use of both Ottoman and Portuguese archives in this context, we return here to the chronicles of Mecca itself, which prove to be an unexpectedly interesting and rich source on the matter. Our main interest is in the figure of Jarullah ibn Fahd and his extensive annalistic work, Nayl al-munā. A good part of our analysis will focus on the events of the 1530s, and the dealings of Sultan Bahadur Shah Gujarati's delegation to the Ottomans, headed by ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Asaf Khan. But we shall also look at the longer history of contacts, and conclude with brief remarks on the relevance of the career of the celebrated Gujarati-Hijazi intellectual, Qutb al-Din Muhammad Nahrawali. We thus hope to add another important, concrete dimension to our understanding of India's location in the early modern Indian Ocean world, as a tribute to the career and contribution of David Washbrook, our friend and colleague.

scholarly journals Bat coronavirus phylogeography in the Western Indian Ocean

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Léa Joffrin ◽  
Steven M. Goodman ◽  
David A. Wilkinson ◽  
Beza Ramasindrazana ◽  
Erwan Lagadec ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Phylogenetic Analyses ◽  
Strong Association ◽  
Western Indian Ocean ◽  
Reunion Island ◽  
High Genetic Diversity ◽  
Soil Fertilization ◽  
Réunion Island ◽  
History Of ◽  
Bat Coronavirus

AbstractBats provide key ecosystem services such as crop pest regulation, pollination, seed dispersal, and soil fertilization. Bats are also major hosts for biological agents responsible for zoonoses, such as coronaviruses (CoVs). The islands of the Western Indian Ocean are identified as a major biodiversity hotspot, with more than 50 bat species. In this study, we tested 1,013 bats belonging to 36 species from Mozambique, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mayotte, Reunion Island and Seychelles, based on molecular screening and partial sequencing of the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase gene. In total, 88 bats (8.7%) tested positive for coronaviruses, with higher prevalence in Mozambican bats (20.5% ± 4.9%) as compared to those sampled on islands (4.5% ± 1.5%). Phylogenetic analyses revealed a large diversity of α- and β-CoVs and a strong signal of co-evolution between CoVs and their bat host species, with limited evidence for host-switching, except for bat species sharing day roost sites.ImportanceThis is the first study to report the presence of coronaviruses (CoVs) in bats in Mayotte, Mozambique and Reunion Island, and in insectivorous bats in Madagascar. Eight percent of the tested bats were positive for CoVs, with higher prevalence in continental Africa than on islands. A high genetic diversity of α- and β-CoVs was found, with strong association between bat host and virus phylogenies, supporting a long history of co-evolution between bats and their associated CoVs in the Western Indian Ocean. These results highlight that strong variation between islands does exist and is associated with the composition of the bat species community on each island. Future studies should investigate whether CoVs detected in these bats have a potential for spillover in other hosts.

Development of verb-verb complexes in Indo-Aryan

2021 ◽  
pp. 249-274
Author(s):  
Benjamin Slade
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
South Asia ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
History Of ◽  
Verb Compounds

This chapter discusses the historical development and properties of verb-verb compounds in Indo-Aryan, with reference to verb-verb compounds in Dravidian. The history of modern Indo-Aryan verb-verb compounds is explored, including an examination of the precursors of such constructions in early Indo-Aryan, as well as the apparent earliest examples in late Middle and early modern Indo-Aryan. A number of morphosyntactic and lexical differences between verb-verb structures in different modern Indo-Aryan languages are examined, focusing particularly on differences between Hindi and Nepali. The larger picture of South Asian verb-verb compounds is examined through comparison of lexical inventories of Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages, with some evidence pointing to independent developments within South Asia, with some later partial convergence.

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