Culture and Commerce in the Indian Ocean

Project Member(s): Ghosh, D.

Start year: 2002

Summary: The project examines trade cultures in a region which was the hub of the major world economic system in the pre-colonial period, and is now restrengthening. It thus links the earliest global system with current globalisation studies, giving those analyses historical depth. The first cultural studies project in Indian Ocean studies, it matches new theory to the empirical diversity of the region, analysing the way cultural forces add value to commodities, while creating diverse forms of transnational culture and identity. The project makes major contributions to cultural/historical and postcolonial thought, with the potential to create a new field of study.''

Keywords: Indian Ocean Economic History Cultural studies Transnationalism Postcolonialism and Aboriginality Globalisation

FOR Codes: Postcolonial and Global Cultural Studies, Cultural Theory, Multicultural, Intercultural and Cross-cultural Studies, Understanding the pasts of other societies, Economic issues not elsewhere classified, Understanding international relations, Globalisation and Culture, International Relations not elsewhere classified, Multicultural, Intercultural and Cross-cultural Studies