Pub Date : 2023-11-01DOI: 10.1215/2834698x-10739236
Johan Mathew
Abstract This article examines the lives of rickshaw pullers around the Indian Ocean Rim in the first half of the twentieth century, with a particular focus on the cities of Singapore and Durban. It analyzes the rickshaw puller as a species of “human capital.” This unorthodox approach highlights how human beings were treated like capital goods: machines for the production of profit. Their costs of living could be understood as investments in more productive bodies. A focus on the consumption of food, shelter, and narcotics also reveals how capitalists sought to profit from the making of more productive human bodies. It finally suggests that economic theories of human capital have neglected the profound yet dehumanizing effects that this economic paradigm imposes on those who have no financial capital to invest in themselves.
{"title":"Puff and Pull: Rickshaw Pullers through the Lens of Human Capital","authors":"Johan Mathew","doi":"10.1215/2834698x-10739236","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/2834698x-10739236","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article examines the lives of rickshaw pullers around the Indian Ocean Rim in the first half of the twentieth century, with a particular focus on the cities of Singapore and Durban. It analyzes the rickshaw puller as a species of “human capital.” This unorthodox approach highlights how human beings were treated like capital goods: machines for the production of profit. Their costs of living could be understood as investments in more productive bodies. A focus on the consumption of food, shelter, and narcotics also reveals how capitalists sought to profit from the making of more productive human bodies. It finally suggests that economic theories of human capital have neglected the profound yet dehumanizing effects that this economic paradigm imposes on those who have no financial capital to invest in themselves.","PeriodicalId":481480,"journal":{"name":"Monsoon","volume":"5 1-2","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135714171","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-01DOI: 10.1215/2834698x-10739247
Robert M. Rouphail
Abstract The Cold War Indian Ocean world was a space in transition. As European empires retreated from the ocean's littoral states, the structure and makeup of what political entities would follow remained opaque and contested. Mauritius's relatively late formal decolonization in 1968 was a case in point: as “winds of change” blew across Indian Ocean Africa, the impending departure of the British from the island threw into stark relief how different racial groups understood their collective diasporic pasts and weighed potential futures free from British rule. This essay examines how race shaped popular conversations on Mauritian political independence through two areas of analysis. The first is a discussion of Mauricianisme, a mid-century project of building a multiracial Mauritian political identity that could accommodate and integrate its African and Asian components to chart a path forward in the postcolonial world. Second is an analysis of a singular Afro-Mauritian newspaper published in the 1950s and 1960s, L’Épée, and how it approached questions of race and decolonization. Taken together, the following pages offer a view into how nationwide debates attempted to reconcile deep histories that spanned the Indian Ocean and to smooth the jagged historical rifts between communal groups with an eye toward political independence.
{"title":"“A Land of Dreams and Nightmares”: Race, Afro-Asia, and Decolonization in Mauritius","authors":"Robert M. Rouphail","doi":"10.1215/2834698x-10739247","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/2834698x-10739247","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The Cold War Indian Ocean world was a space in transition. As European empires retreated from the ocean's littoral states, the structure and makeup of what political entities would follow remained opaque and contested. Mauritius's relatively late formal decolonization in 1968 was a case in point: as “winds of change” blew across Indian Ocean Africa, the impending departure of the British from the island threw into stark relief how different racial groups understood their collective diasporic pasts and weighed potential futures free from British rule. This essay examines how race shaped popular conversations on Mauritian political independence through two areas of analysis. The first is a discussion of Mauricianisme, a mid-century project of building a multiracial Mauritian political identity that could accommodate and integrate its African and Asian components to chart a path forward in the postcolonial world. Second is an analysis of a singular Afro-Mauritian newspaper published in the 1950s and 1960s, L’Épée, and how it approached questions of race and decolonization. Taken together, the following pages offer a view into how nationwide debates attempted to reconcile deep histories that spanned the Indian Ocean and to smooth the jagged historical rifts between communal groups with an eye toward political independence.","PeriodicalId":481480,"journal":{"name":"Monsoon","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135714172","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-01DOI: 10.1215/2834698x-10739258
Naminata Diabate
Abstract On Sunday, February 26, 2023, Naminata Diabate met over Zoom with visual artist Malala Andrialavidrazana, whose most recent works have been exhibited at the Boghossian Foundation in Brussels and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Based on extensive in situ as well as bibliographic and archival research, Andrialavidrazana's visual compositions offer the possibility of alternative forms of storytelling and world-making. In this interview, the artist, whose interest spans centuries and all corners of the globe, shared how the political and racial landscape of her country of origin, Madagascar, and her family background shape her artistic expression and her place in the world.
{"title":"“I Want to Be Involved in Constructing the World”: In Discussion with Malala Andrialavidrazana","authors":"Naminata Diabate","doi":"10.1215/2834698x-10739258","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/2834698x-10739258","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract On Sunday, February 26, 2023, Naminata Diabate met over Zoom with visual artist Malala Andrialavidrazana, whose most recent works have been exhibited at the Boghossian Foundation in Brussels and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Based on extensive in situ as well as bibliographic and archival research, Andrialavidrazana's visual compositions offer the possibility of alternative forms of storytelling and world-making. In this interview, the artist, whose interest spans centuries and all corners of the globe, shared how the political and racial landscape of her country of origin, Madagascar, and her family background shape her artistic expression and her place in the world.","PeriodicalId":481480,"journal":{"name":"Monsoon","volume":"18 5","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135714498","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-01DOI: 10.1215/2834698x-10739280
G. Thomas Burgess
Abstract For most of the 1960s, Kweupe served as the official printed mouthpiece of the Zanzibari Revolution. Appearing in Swahili, the newspaper repeatedly claimed the revolution would only succeed if islanders were willing to transform their thoughts, values, and routines. Through analysis of such rhetoric, this article sheds new light upon the relationship between nationalism and socialism in the Indian Ocean during the Cold War. It argues that nationalists frequently perceived in socialism a series of anchoring principles by which to obtain meaningful as opposed to illusory sovereignty. And while socialism proposed ways to resist and reshape global structures faulted for perpetuating neocolonial domination and inequality, it also presented cultural solutions to poverty and powerlessness on the world stage. Indeed, the socialist concept of cultural revolution appealed to nationalists of the 1960s because its effectiveness appeared to be indisputable—and because the concept licensed nationalists to critically evaluate inherited cultural norms in terms of their perceived conduciveness to national progress and sovereignty. Such critique was not exceptional to nationalists of the Indian Ocean searching for means by which to complete the process of decolonization. Rather, it was inherent to nationalist thought since at least the early nineteenth century and was inspired by a series of sentiments and emotions that call for further scholarly examination.
{"title":"The Concept of Cultural Revolution, and Its Indian Ocean Travels during the Cold War","authors":"G. Thomas Burgess","doi":"10.1215/2834698x-10739280","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/2834698x-10739280","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract For most of the 1960s, Kweupe served as the official printed mouthpiece of the Zanzibari Revolution. Appearing in Swahili, the newspaper repeatedly claimed the revolution would only succeed if islanders were willing to transform their thoughts, values, and routines. Through analysis of such rhetoric, this article sheds new light upon the relationship between nationalism and socialism in the Indian Ocean during the Cold War. It argues that nationalists frequently perceived in socialism a series of anchoring principles by which to obtain meaningful as opposed to illusory sovereignty. And while socialism proposed ways to resist and reshape global structures faulted for perpetuating neocolonial domination and inequality, it also presented cultural solutions to poverty and powerlessness on the world stage. Indeed, the socialist concept of cultural revolution appealed to nationalists of the 1960s because its effectiveness appeared to be indisputable—and because the concept licensed nationalists to critically evaluate inherited cultural norms in terms of their perceived conduciveness to national progress and sovereignty. Such critique was not exceptional to nationalists of the Indian Ocean searching for means by which to complete the process of decolonization. Rather, it was inherent to nationalist thought since at least the early nineteenth century and was inspired by a series of sentiments and emotions that call for further scholarly examination.","PeriodicalId":481480,"journal":{"name":"Monsoon","volume":"3 4","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135714173","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-01DOI: 10.1215/2834698x-10739269
R. M. Abusharaf
Abstract This article examines the two instances of concubinage (suria) during the Omani rule of Zanzibar and the Ndoa Za Karume Forced Marriage Act that followed the revolution in 1964 on the island. Both practices can be seen as laboratories in which the complexities of sex and power were in full display. Throughout, the author draws inspiration from anthropologist Tim Ingold's theory of human correspondence alongside valuable insights from the intersection of black feminist thought and humanistic anthropology to deepen our understanding of both concubinage and forced marriage as forms of sexual bondage occurring within particular political circumstances and historical realities. For indeed, both objectifying practices assumed a variety of meanings in colonial and postrevolutionary Zanzibar. When conjugating suria and ndoa within the complex grammar of race, class, and gender, we also often encounter inconsistencies inherent in fraught human relationships and furthered by the marked fluidities and slippages of both practices and their varying connotative, pragmatic, and ideational significances. Was the Ndoa za Karume an act of retribution against concubinage? Or was it a contribution to a nation-building project in a society adrift? To consider these questions, the article draws on a variety of ethnographic insights gathered in Zanzibar and Oman between 2016 and 2019 and a constellation of texts, including archives, local historiographies, a collection of Swahili statements for and against ndoa possessed by an interlocutor, memoirs, and other field notes gathered in 2020–21. The article explores what was at stake in these two parallel modes of exploiting women's bodies, arguing that they cannot be understood in isolation from their “correspondences” and the emotionality manifested in both gendered social dramas.
本文考察了阿曼统治桑给巴尔期间的纳妾(suria)和1964年桑给巴尔革命后的Ndoa Za Karume强迫婚姻法的两个例子。这两种实践都可以被看作是充分展示性和权力复杂性的实验室。贯穿全书，作者从人类学家蒂姆·英格戈尔德的人类通信理论中汲取灵感，同时从黑人女权主义思想和人文人类学的交叉点中获得宝贵的见解，加深我们对纳妾和强迫婚姻作为性奴役形式在特定政治环境和历史现实中发生的理解。事实上，这两种物化实践在殖民时期和革命后的桑给巴尔都有不同的含义。当在种族、阶级和性别的复杂语法中结合suria和ndoa时，我们也经常遇到令人担忧的人际关系中固有的不一致性，并且由于两种实践的显著流动性和滑移以及它们不同的内涵、语用和概念意义而进一步加剧。Ndoa za Karume是对纳妾行为的一种报复吗?还是对一个漂泊不定的社会的国家建设项目的贡献?为了考虑这些问题，本文借鉴了2016年至2019年期间在桑给巴尔和阿曼收集的各种民族志见解，以及一系列文本，包括档案、当地历史文献、对话者拥有的斯瓦希里语支持和反对恩多阿的声明集、回忆录和2020-21年收集的其他实地笔记。这篇文章探讨了这两种剥削女性身体的平行模式的危险之处，认为不能脱离她们的“对应”和两性社会戏剧中表现出来的情感来理解它们。
{"title":"Burning Desires: Zanzibari Women in the Throes of Concubinage and Gunpoint Matrimony","authors":"R. M. Abusharaf","doi":"10.1215/2834698x-10739269","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/2834698x-10739269","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article examines the two instances of concubinage (suria) during the Omani rule of Zanzibar and the Ndoa Za Karume Forced Marriage Act that followed the revolution in 1964 on the island. Both practices can be seen as laboratories in which the complexities of sex and power were in full display. Throughout, the author draws inspiration from anthropologist Tim Ingold's theory of human correspondence alongside valuable insights from the intersection of black feminist thought and humanistic anthropology to deepen our understanding of both concubinage and forced marriage as forms of sexual bondage occurring within particular political circumstances and historical realities. For indeed, both objectifying practices assumed a variety of meanings in colonial and postrevolutionary Zanzibar. When conjugating suria and ndoa within the complex grammar of race, class, and gender, we also often encounter inconsistencies inherent in fraught human relationships and furthered by the marked fluidities and slippages of both practices and their varying connotative, pragmatic, and ideational significances. Was the Ndoa za Karume an act of retribution against concubinage? Or was it a contribution to a nation-building project in a society adrift? To consider these questions, the article draws on a variety of ethnographic insights gathered in Zanzibar and Oman between 2016 and 2019 and a constellation of texts, including archives, local historiographies, a collection of Swahili statements for and against ndoa possessed by an interlocutor, memoirs, and other field notes gathered in 2020–21. The article explores what was at stake in these two parallel modes of exploiting women's bodies, arguing that they cannot be understood in isolation from their “correspondences” and the emotionality manifested in both gendered social dramas.","PeriodicalId":481480,"journal":{"name":"Monsoon","volume":"6 2-3","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135714168","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-01DOI: 10.1215/2834698x-10739302
Jeremy Prestholdt
Abstract In January 2022, Jeremy Prestholdt communicated with Edward A. Alpers, author, editor, and coeditor of many books and Research Professor and Emeritus Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. Communicating by email, in this interview Alpers discussed his career and scholarly trajectory, his books Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa and The Indian Ocean in World History, many of his pathbreaking articles, and his current research.
2022年1月，杰里米·普雷斯霍尔特(Jeremy Prestholdt)与爱德华·阿尔帕斯(Edward A. Alpers)进行了交流。爱德华·阿尔帕斯是加州大学洛杉矶分校的研究教授和名誉历史学教授，也是多部著作的作者、编辑和合著者。在这次采访中，Alpers通过电子邮件讨论了他的职业生涯和学术轨迹，他的著作《中非东部的象牙和奴隶》和《世界史上的印度洋》，他的许多开创性文章，以及他目前的研究。
{"title":"On Engaging with the Indian Ocean, Africa, and History: A Conversation with Edward A. Alpers","authors":"Jeremy Prestholdt","doi":"10.1215/2834698x-10739302","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/2834698x-10739302","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In January 2022, Jeremy Prestholdt communicated with Edward A. Alpers, author, editor, and coeditor of many books and Research Professor and Emeritus Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. Communicating by email, in this interview Alpers discussed his career and scholarly trajectory, his books Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa and The Indian Ocean in World History, many of his pathbreaking articles, and his current research.","PeriodicalId":481480,"journal":{"name":"Monsoon","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135714169","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-01DOI: 10.1215/2834698x-10739291
Burkhard Schnepel
Abstract This article looks at “routes” and “hubs” in the Indian Ocean world, arguing that using these two concepts within a mobility-oriented perspective will provide an insightful addition, and alternative, to investigations that are guided solely by spatial concepts, such as “hinterland” or “littoral.” The first major part of this article discusses various routes in the history of the Indian Ocean world. It addresses questions such as the competition between various routes, their interconnectedness, their internal structure, deviations from the main routes, and the role of local pilots in showing the way to colonial powers. The second major part looks at the nodal points along such routes, here called “hubs.” It will be argued that these hubs not only enable the movements of things, but also stop them, if only temporarily, thereby often transforming them in meaning, value, and function. Therefore, hubs are also identified as having an internal dimension in addition to an external one. These points will be discussed with reference to one paradigmatic case, namely the island of Mauritius in the southwestern part of Indian Ocean world. The issue of mobility is discussed in greater detail in two further sections. While arguing in favor of mobility-oriented perspectives and methods, it is held that an overinflated use of terms such as circulation or flow may also be misleading.
{"title":"Routes and Hubs in the Indian Ocean World: Methodological Reconsiderations","authors":"Burkhard Schnepel","doi":"10.1215/2834698x-10739291","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/2834698x-10739291","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article looks at “routes” and “hubs” in the Indian Ocean world, arguing that using these two concepts within a mobility-oriented perspective will provide an insightful addition, and alternative, to investigations that are guided solely by spatial concepts, such as “hinterland” or “littoral.” The first major part of this article discusses various routes in the history of the Indian Ocean world. It addresses questions such as the competition between various routes, their interconnectedness, their internal structure, deviations from the main routes, and the role of local pilots in showing the way to colonial powers. The second major part looks at the nodal points along such routes, here called “hubs.” It will be argued that these hubs not only enable the movements of things, but also stop them, if only temporarily, thereby often transforming them in meaning, value, and function. Therefore, hubs are also identified as having an internal dimension in addition to an external one. These points will be discussed with reference to one paradigmatic case, namely the island of Mauritius in the southwestern part of Indian Ocean world. The issue of mobility is discussed in greater detail in two further sections. While arguing in favor of mobility-oriented perspectives and methods, it is held that an overinflated use of terms such as circulation or flow may also be misleading.","PeriodicalId":481480,"journal":{"name":"Monsoon","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135714167","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-01DOI: 10.1215/2834698x-10739225
Gwyn Campbell
Abstract The conventional historical interpretation of the early nineteenth-century history of Madagascar is that it reflected two contrasting reigns, that of King Radama I (r. 1810–28), and that of his successor, Queen Ranavalona I (r. 1828–61). The dominant view of Radama is that he was an enlightened, progressive, and pro-European monarch who welcomed embassies from British-ruled Mauritius from 1816, signed a treaty of alliance with Britain in 1820, and within less than a decade banned slave exports, accepted a Resident British political agent at his court, encouraged a London Missionary Society mission in Madagascar, and with British military assistance quickly subjected the entire island to his rule. By contrast, Ranavalona, Radama's senior wife, was illiterate and, guided by superstition and ancestral beliefs, unpredictable and brutal. Upon Radama's untimely death in mid-1828, Ranavalona illicitly seized the throne, established a tyrannical administration, and pursued retrograde illiberal, xenophobic, and anti-Christian policies. This article critically examines the origins of the conventional interpretation of Ranavalona and argues for the rationality of core economic and military policies she adopted aimed at safeguarding Madagascar from European imperial domination.
{"title":"Ranavalona I of Madagascar: African Jezebel or Patriot?","authors":"Gwyn Campbell","doi":"10.1215/2834698x-10739225","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/2834698x-10739225","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The conventional historical interpretation of the early nineteenth-century history of Madagascar is that it reflected two contrasting reigns, that of King Radama I (r. 1810–28), and that of his successor, Queen Ranavalona I (r. 1828–61). The dominant view of Radama is that he was an enlightened, progressive, and pro-European monarch who welcomed embassies from British-ruled Mauritius from 1816, signed a treaty of alliance with Britain in 1820, and within less than a decade banned slave exports, accepted a Resident British political agent at his court, encouraged a London Missionary Society mission in Madagascar, and with British military assistance quickly subjected the entire island to his rule. By contrast, Ranavalona, Radama's senior wife, was illiterate and, guided by superstition and ancestral beliefs, unpredictable and brutal. Upon Radama's untimely death in mid-1828, Ranavalona illicitly seized the throne, established a tyrannical administration, and pursued retrograde illiberal, xenophobic, and anti-Christian policies. This article critically examines the origins of the conventional interpretation of Ranavalona and argues for the rationality of core economic and military policies she adopted aimed at safeguarding Madagascar from European imperial domination.","PeriodicalId":481480,"journal":{"name":"Monsoon","volume":"5 3","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135714170","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-01DOI: 10.1215/2834698x-10345969
Dale Eickelman
Abstract In principle, the theocracy of the twentieth-century Imamate of the northern Oman interior, ruled by an imam, was incompatible with the royal authority of Sultan Sa‘id bin Taymur (r. 1932–70). In practice, the points of collaboration were many. Seen from the vantage of ordinary tribespeople, the Imamate was a government. In the words of a former member of the Imamate's militia in 1980, “It killed; it taxed; it imprisoned.” The Ibadi imam had fourteen governors to represent his authority. Many qadis (judges) worked for both the Imamate and the Sultanate, always after first seeking permission from the Imam. Many judges often divided their time annually between the lands governed directly by the Imam and those of the Sultan. Several key incidents from the 1940s through the mid-1950s indicate the level of tacit cooperation, including 1952 support for combined military action to expel Saudis from an oasis in Buraimi. In the 1950s, Sultan Sa‘id was initially successful in assimilating the former domains under imamate control into direct Sultanate rule. He had, after all, assured tribal leaders that he would preserve what was essentially Islamic in the life of the interior—except of course for the nature of rule at the top. He preserved the status quo but by the 1960s it became increasingly obvious that he was unwilling or unable to face the shifting perceptions of “just” Islamic rule and the country's economic stagnation and desperate poverty.
{"title":"From Theocracy to Monarchy: Authority and Legitimacy in Inner Oman, 1935–1957","authors":"Dale Eickelman","doi":"10.1215/2834698x-10345969","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/2834698x-10345969","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In principle, the theocracy of the twentieth-century Imamate of the northern Oman interior, ruled by an imam, was incompatible with the royal authority of Sultan Sa‘id bin Taymur (r. 1932–70). In practice, the points of collaboration were many. Seen from the vantage of ordinary tribespeople, the Imamate was a government. In the words of a former member of the Imamate's militia in 1980, “It killed; it taxed; it imprisoned.” The Ibadi imam had fourteen governors to represent his authority. Many qadis (judges) worked for both the Imamate and the Sultanate, always after first seeking permission from the Imam. Many judges often divided their time annually between the lands governed directly by the Imam and those of the Sultan. Several key incidents from the 1940s through the mid-1950s indicate the level of tacit cooperation, including 1952 support for combined military action to expel Saudis from an oasis in Buraimi. In the 1950s, Sultan Sa‘id was initially successful in assimilating the former domains under imamate control into direct Sultanate rule. He had, after all, assured tribal leaders that he would preserve what was essentially Islamic in the life of the interior—except of course for the nature of rule at the top. He preserved the status quo but by the 1960s it became increasingly obvious that he was unwilling or unable to face the shifting perceptions of “just” Islamic rule and the country's economic stagnation and desperate poverty.","PeriodicalId":481480,"journal":{"name":"Monsoon","volume":"71 5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135337445","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-01DOI: 10.1215/2834698x-10345947
Pier M. Larson
Abstract Born on Ile de France in late 1799 to a French father and a free mixed-race mother from Fort-Dauphin in southeast Madagascar, Aristide Corroller gained an education at Port-Louis but departed to pursue a political career in Madagascar after 1815. Corroller first assisted his maternal uncles to capture the sovereignty of Madagascar's central eastern coast (Ivondro-Tamatave-Foulpointe) but then entered the service of King Radama of Imerina. He rose through the ranks of Radama's service to become commander-in-chief of Antananarivo's armed forces and the second most powerful man of that independent kingdom. His fortunes soured with the death of Radama in July 1828, however. He was placed under house arrest for a time and then returned to govern Tamatave but died there with frustrated ambitions in late 1835, leaving a written account of his achievements on which this article is substantially based. This article employs Corroller's writings found in a library in New Zealand not only to trace his career but to discuss the strategies of his island-hopping family—particularly his maternal ancestors from Madagascar who moved to Ile de France and his maternal uncles who returned to Madagascar—and the careers of European administrators of empire who collected and pored over his work. Corroller's career, mixed-race family, and labors illuminate the contours of life in the western Indian Ocean islands of his time, bringing their migrations, commerce, colonial constraints and opportunities, as well as human interconnections and racial structures, into conversation.
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