September 10, 2015 (Thursday)

Session 6: Indian Ocean

Summer school was finally half over as Day 4 began.

Today, only a morning session was held because the event moved to Hokkaido in the afternoon. This session was chaired by Professor Alessandro Stanziani of the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in France. Leonard von Galen of Humboldt University of Berlin and Katakura Shizuo of the University of Tokyo conducted lively discussions with participants concerning nineteenth century trade activities in the Indian Ocean from the perspective of global history.

In the abstract of his master’s thesis, “(…) they were like kings” Indian Merchants in the Sultanate Zanzibar and Oman (1840–1856), Mr. von Galen discussed the activities and roles of Indian merchants in Africa, pointing out that they influenced the African continent not only economically, but also politically. Questions from the floor about this research began with basic inquiries regarding the setting of the time period, contents and types of goods traded, lingua franca of the period, and characteristics and contents of historical sources. The necessity of a perspective focused on elements such as networks, currencies, credit, etc. was also pointed out. Others expressed the positive view that making the objects of research specific families or the lives of individual Indian merchants was an attractive feature of his research. A lively series of comments were made from the floor regarding matters such as Indian merchants’ consciousness of sultans. Finally, important reference sources and a new research approach were introduced by the teaching staff.

Mr. Katakura’s doctoral dissertation proposal, “Institutional Changes of Major Port Cities in the Nineteenth-Century Western Indian Ocean: Overlapping Empires and Merchant Networks,” was an attempt to clarify changes in the political and economic systems of port cities of the Western Indian Ocean in the nineteenth century and the impact of these changes on relationships between the cities. First, he confirmed the possibility of interpreting historical sources in multiple languages and reasons for selecting the time span in question. He continued his discussion with a focus on the impact of advances in navigational technology on the political and economic systems of the port cities. Regarding the Western Indian Ocean, which he set as the framework for this research, Mr. Katakura was asked to explain its significance, specifically in terms of distinguishing it from the Eastern Indian Ocean. Additionally, many participants were interested in how he positioned his study of the Western Indian Ocean in the nineteenth century in the context of global history. They also asked him to explain the characteristics of the historical sources he used and the possibility of discovering new ones.

I felt that Mr. von Galen’s research possibly reveals a new approach to past research on trade via the Indian Ocean by focusing on Indian merchants. Mr. Katakura’s research, which attempted to clarify worldwide links in the nineteenth century on the basis of four port cities and their interrelationships, can be described as an ambitious project. Both researchers attempted to transcend the conventional dichotomy of “Western” versus “non-Western” and combined a positivism that meticulously interpreted complex processes with a theoretical awareness of problems associated with Indian Ocean trade. We are looking forward to future undertakings of these researchers.　　（CHENG　Yongchao)