Licit and Illicit Lives in the Indian Ocean

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel Proposal Application

Abstract

From the multifaceted security challenges that it currently presents to the socioeconomic opportunities and cultural diversity that it always offered, the Indian Ocean has been on the rise again as a locus of vibrant intellectual discourse by scholars in and of the regions around its long, transcontinental rims. Questions surrounding identity and mobility (physical as well as socioeconomic) have been the hallmarks of the Indian Ocean World that also foregrounded wider global connections. By bringing together five emerging scholars from different disciplines and institutions, this panel aims to deliberate on global challenges that once confronted – and continue to confront – the Indian Ocean World and real-life questions that it raises. The panellists will especially focus on the licit and illicit lives in the Indian Ocean region through the changing faces and sources of authority from the colonial gaze to piracy and the “war on terror.”

Area of Study

• Interarea-Border Crossing-Diaspora

Session Organizer

• Nidhi Mahajan, Leiden University

Individual Presentations

• Licit and Illicit Lexicons: Indian Ocean Sailors as Agents of Cultural Contact - Tom Hoogervorst, Leiden University

• Indian Minorities in Sub-Saharan Africa: British Colonial Immigration Laws And the Making and Unmaking of Subjecthood - Marina Martin, Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main

• Cycles of Criminality: Piracy and Fishing in the Indian Ocean - Awet Weldemichael, Queen's University

• Encounters at Sea: The Borders of Hospitality in the Indian Ocean - Jatin Dua, University of Michigan

• Crossing Legal Boundaries: Illegalization and the Dhow Trade in the Western Indian Ocean - Nidhi Mahajan, Leiden University