Indian Ocean Studies Cultural, Social, and Political Perspectives [Hardcover]

The Indian Ocean is famously referred to as the cradle of globalization, as it facilitated cultural and economic exchanges between Africa, the Arab world, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and China, for 5000 years prior to European presence in the region. As this ocean's significance has gained increasing attention from scholars in recent years, few have examined the 'human' dimensions in Indian Ocean exchanges. Including the work of historians, geographers, anthropologists and literary analysts, each essay in this volume addresses a specific human factor, such as the fate of the creole in the Bay of Bengal, creolization as a globalized phenomenon, migrancy and diaspora, the lives of seafarers then and now, and the lives of those who inhabit the ocean's littoral. This volume is a necessary addition to the field of Indian Ocean studies.

Preface  Michael Pearson  1. Introduction: New Conjunctures in Maritime Imaginaries  Shanti Moorthy and Ashraf Jamal  2. Fabulation: Flying Carpets and Artful Politics in the Indian Ocean  Stephen Muecke  3. The Indian Ocean and the Making of Outback Australia: An Ecocultural Odyssey  Haripriya Rangan and Christian Kull  4. Contesting History: Have We Ever Been Cosmopolitan?  Shanti Moorthy  5. Destined to Disappear Without a Trace: Gender and the Languages of Creolisation in the Indian Ocean, Africa, Brazil, and the Caribbean Fernando Rosa Ribeiro  6. Commerce, Circulation and Consumption: Indian Ocean Communities in Historical Perspective  Lakshmi Subramanian 7. Shared Hopes: New Worlds: Indians, Australians & Indonesians in the Boycott of Dutch Shipping 1945  1949  Heather Goodall  8. Signs of Wonder: The Postmortem Travels of Francis Xavier ls‚