About the Book
Case studies that show the importance of the
Indian Ocean region to the emergence of modernity and globalization
This
volume brings together a diverse range of specialists working in multiple areas
of the Indian Ocean world, providing broad geographical coverage and comparisons
across sites. Contributors use a historical archaeological approach, which
bridges everyday life in the recent past with large-scale processes of
globalization, to examine topics related to colonialism, labor, race,
ethnicity, diaspora, human-environment relationships, and heritage.
Case
studies from Zanzibar, Mauritius and the Mascarene islands, India, Indonesia,
Java, and other locations emphasize networks and connections across the Indian
Ocean. Contributors apply a variety of disciplinary methods, including
bioanthropology, analysis of medieval illustrations and colonial documents,
architectural history, and anthropology of built space. They discuss the
material history of domestic areas, religious structures, and colonial outposts;
the structure of the slave trade; and the everyday implications of disease and
health management within laboring populations.
This
volume decenters European narratives and actors to show the important ways this
region shaped the modern world. By highlighting the experiences of ordinary
people in East Africa and South and Southeast Asia, the research in these
chapters contributes to a better understanding of histories in the Global South
over the last four hundred years.
