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In the heyday of colonialism and empire, global connections conspired to produce a singular industrial and ‘civilised’ world on the ruins of many others. But another form of connectivity facilitated the survival of worlds of an entirely different kind. One example can be found in the late 19th century, in day-to-day interactions that linked East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Australasia at the non-state level. Indigenous and non-state actors turned to the ocean, where their local knowledge of nature served to facilitate transnational coexistence and mutual aid, inadvertently undermining colonial forms of relating. ‘Japanese’ fishers, ‘Manillamen’, ‘aboriginal Australians’, ‘Melanesians’, and many others thereby shaped the contours of what I call the ‘Arafura Zone’.
This seminar will demonstrate how Asia was not just a historical backdrop for the expansion of industrial civilisation but also the originator of an indigenous form of globalisation.
Join us in person at St. Antony’s College, or online at: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZclcemorzMoGtd4VkJx75F0097hxbKvaPq6
