The Indian Ocean World Podcast

Chris Gratien - ”The Unsettled Plain”

This week, Dr. Philip Gooding (IOWC, McGill) interviews Prof. Chris Gratien (UVA) about his highly-awarded new book, The Unsettled Plain: An Environmental History of the Late Ottoman Frontier (Stanford UP, 2022). They talk about trends and methods in environmental history, the specific histories of Çukurova that the book explores, and the late Ottoman frontier as a frontier in turn of the vast Indian Ocean World.
Prof. Gratien is Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of History. The Unsettled Plain is his first monograph, building from his 2015 PhD Georgetown University doctoral thesis. He also co-founded the Ottoman History Podcast in 2011, where he remains a producer.
Links:
University Profile: https://history.virginia.edu/people/profile/crg8w
Book: https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=32948
Ottoman History Podcast: https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/p/about-us.html
The Indian Ocean World Podcast is hosted by Dr. Philip Gooding, produced by Sam Gleave Riemann, and published under the SSHRC-funded Partnership "Appraising Risk, Past and Present."

Jeremy Prestholdt - Monsoon: Journal of the Indian Ocean Rim

Prof. Jeremy Prestholdt (UC San Diego) joins Dr. Philip Gooding (IOWC, McGill) to go behind-the-scenes on the new journal of Indian Ocean Studies, Monsoon, of which Prof. Prestholdt is founding co-editor. They also discuss some of Prof. Prestholdt's recent and upcoming research on the connections of the Western Indian Ocean and Indian Ocean Africa with global economic and cultural systems.
Prof. Prestholdt completed his PhD at Northwestern University in 2003 and is now Professor of History at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of two books, Icons of Dissent: The Global Resonance of Che, Marley, Tupac and Bin Laden (2023) and Domesticating the World: African Consumerism and the Genealogies of Globalization (2008).
Links:
University Profile: https://history.ucsd.edu/people/faculty/prestholdt.html
Monsoon: Journal of the Indian Ocean Rim: https://www.dukeupress.edu/monsoon
The Africa Institute: https://www.theafricainstitute.org/
"Locating the Indian Ocean" (2015): https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2015.1091639
"Global Currents and the Transformation of Space in Indian Ocean Africa" (2015): https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201X-10615622
The Indian Ocean World Podcast is hosted by Dr. Philip Gooding, produced by Sam Gleave Riemann, and published under the SSHRC-funded Partnership "Appraising Risk, Past and Present."

Julien Greschner - ”Solutions to Poverty According to Those Who Live It: Case Study in Manyatta B Informal Settlement, Kisumu, Kenya”

Our producer, Sam Gleave Riemann (IOWC, McGill), is joined by Julien Greschner to discuss his 2023 Masters thesis, "Solutions to Poverty According to Those Who Live It: Case Study in Manyatta B Informal Settlement, Kisumu, Kenya," covering definitions of poverty, community perceptions, and research processes in the global South under pandemic conditions.
Julien Greschner recently completed his MA in Geography at McGill University under the supervision of Prof. Jon Unruh.
The Indian Ocean World Podcast is hosted by Dr. Philip Gooding, produced by Sam Gleave Riemann, and published under the SSHRC-funded Partnership "Appraising Risk, Past and Present."

James Parker - ”Ecologies of Development: Ecophilosophies and Indigenous Action on the Tana River”

Dr. Philip Gooding (IOWC, McGill) is joined by Dr. James Parker (Arizona State University) to discuss his 2022 paper, "Ecologies of Development: Ecophilosophies and Indigenous Action on the Tana River," published in History in Africa. The conversation covers colonial capitalism and its post-colonial hangovers along the river, the complex Indigenous responses to these forces, and the agency of the Tana itself in shaping these stories.
Dr. Parker completed his PhD at Northeastern University in 2020 and, before joining ASU, he held posts at the Carter G. Woodson Center at the University of Virginia and at Texas Women's University.
Links:
University Profile: https://search.asu.edu/profile/4878911
Paper: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/history-in-africa/article/ecologies-of-development-ecophilosophies-and-indigenous-action-on-the-tana-river/195C0B517750990AFC2F1C6010690310?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=bookmark
The Indian Ocean World Podcast is hosted by Dr. Philip Gooding, produced by Sam Gleave Riemann, and published under the SSHRC-funded Partnership "Appraising Risk, Past and Present."

James Beattie - ”Migrant Ecologies” & International Review of Environmental History

Dr. Philip Gooding (IOWC, McGill) welcomes Dr. James Beattie (Victoria University of Wellington) for a wide-ranging discussion of Dr. Beattie's work: the 2022 multi-author volume Migrant Ecologies: Environmental History of the Pacific World, which he co-edited with Ryan Tucker Jones and Edward Dallam Melillo; his chapter in that book, "Chinese Resource Frontiers, Environmental Change, and Entrepreneurship in the South Pacific, 1790s–1920s"; and the International Review of Environmental History, a dynamic, refereed, open-access journal of which he is founding editor.
Dr. Beattie completed his PhD at the University of Otago in 2005 and since then has has published widely on Chinese and environmental history in the Pacific World.
Links:
University Profile: https://people.wgtn.ac.nz/james.beattie/about
IREH: https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/journals/international-review-environmental-history
Migrant Ecologies: https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/migrant-ecologies-environmental-histories-of-the-pacific-world/
The Indian Ocean World Podcast is hosted by Dr. Philip Gooding, produced by Sam Gleave Riemann, and published under the SSHRC-funded Partnership "Appraising Risk, Past and Present."

Sophie Chao - ”The Beetle or the Bug” & ”The Multispecies World of Oil Palm”

Producer Sam Gleave Riemann (IOWC, McGill) is joined by Dr. Sophie Chao (Sydney) to discuss the complex ecologies of West Papuan oil palm plantations. They consider multispecies kinships, capitalist aggression, and the various critters who assist and oppose the oil palm's presence in Papua.
Dr. Chao completed her PhD at the Macquarie University in 2019 and is now a DECRA Fellow and Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Sydney. Prior to pursuing her doctoral studies, she worked for the Indigenous rights organization Forest Peoples Programme in Indonesia and the UK. She is the author of In the Shadow of the Palms: More-than-human Becomings in West Papua, which was published in 2022 with Duke University Press.
Links:
"The Beetle or the Bug": https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.13592
"The Multispecies World of Oil Palm": https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-08537-6_12
University Profile: https://www.sydney.edu.au/arts/about/our-people/academic-staff/sophie-chao.html
The Indian Ocean World Podcast is hosted by Dr. Philip Gooding, produced by Sam Gleave Riemann, and published under the SSHRC-funded Partnership “Appraising Risk, Past and Present.”

Tamara Fernando - ”Mapping Oysters and Making Oceans in the Northern Indian Ocean, 1880–1906”

In the first episode of our fall season, Dr. Philip Gooding (IOWC, McGill) is in conversation with Prof. Tamara Fernando (Stony Brook). Taking Prof. Fernando's 2023 paper, "Mapping Oysters and Making Oceans in the Northern Indian Ocean, 1880–1906," as their starting point, they discuss her research into the 19th-century pearl trade around the Indian Ocean World, which spans several historical subfields—animal and labour histories; the histories of science and empire—and calls us to reexamine the role of non-human actors and indeed of the ocean itself in Indian Ocean World studies.
Prof. Fernando completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge in 2022 and has recently joined Stony Brook University in New York as Associate Professor in the Department of History.
Links:
Article: https://doi.org/10.1017/S001041752200038X
Website: https://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/history/people/_faculty/fernando
The Indian Ocean World Podcast is hosted by Dr. Philip Gooding, produced by Sam Gleave Riemann, and published under the SSHRC-funded Partnership “Appraising Risk, Past and Present.”

The IOWC Research Assistants - Summer 2023 Research Roundup

On this special episode between seasons, Dr. Philip Gooding (IOWC, McGill) checks in with four of the IOWC undergraduate Research Assistants. Join us as we honour their hard work and learn more about the ongoing research projects at the Indian Ocean World Centre.
Wukai Jiang majors in Geography and minors in History at McGill University.
Nadia Fekih has just completed her second year at McGill, majoring in Environmental Studies and minoring in History.
Alex Springer graduated from McGill this spring with Honours in International Development and a minor in History; he will continue his studies at Imperial College, London in the fall.
Lilia Scudamore is going into her third year at McGill, majoring in History and minoring in both Political Science and Economics.Link:https://niche-canada.org/2023/03/15/a-gis-approach-to-a-history-of-epidemics-in-19th-century-india/
The Indian Ocean World Podcast is hosted by Dr. Philip Gooding, produced by Sam Gleave Riemann, and published under the SSHRC-funded Partnership “Appraising Risk, Past and Present.”

Philip Gooding - “On the Frontiers of the Indian Ocean World: A History of Lake Tanganyika, c.1830-1890”

Our usual host, Dr. Philip Gooding (IOWC, McGill), is our interviewee this week, answering a few questions about his first monograph, On the Frontiers of the Indian Ocean World: A History of Lake Tanganyika, c.1830-1890 (Cambridge UP, 2022) with our producer, Sam Gleave Riemann. As well as introducing the book to listeners who haven't had a chance to read it yet, they answer a handful of questions that Philip didn't have time to address at his book launch, considering the role of Christian missionaries and Muslim merchants, narratives of continuity and change, and his varied methodologies.
Philip earned a PhD in History from SOAS London in 2017. He joined the Indian Ocean World Centre as a Postdoctoral Fellow in 2018 and since then has published a number of articles on East African and Indian Ocean history, co-edited two multi-author volumes, and served as associate editor of the Journal of Indian Ocean World Studies.
Links:
Book: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009122023
Website: https://www.philipgooding.com/
The Indian Ocean World Podcast is hosted by Dr. Philip Gooding, produced by Sam Gleave Riemann, and published under the SSHRC-funded Partnership “Appraising Risk, Past and Present.”

Alice Nyawira Karuri - “Adaptation of Small-Scale Tea and Coffee Farmers in Kenya to Climate Change”

This week, our host Dr. Philip Gooding (IOWC, McGill) joins in conversation with Dr. Alice Nyawira Karuri (Strathmore) to discuss her recent chapter "Adaptation of Small-Scale Tea and Coffee Farmers in Kenya to Climate Change," published in the African Handbook of Climate Change Adaptation (Springer, 2021). Their conversation covers Dr. Karuri's economic research into the challenges facing Kenyan tea and coffee farmers in our current climate crisis, the work that the farmers and their partners are doing—or not—to face those challenges, and the economic, political, and historical forces that shape stakeholder decision-making.
Dr. Karuri is a lecturer in Development Studies at Strathmore University in Nairobi, Kenya. She completed her PhD in Development Studies at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology in 2019 and is currently contributing to the HESTIA Farm Sustainability Toolkit Project at Oxford University.
Links:
Article: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45106-6_70
Website: https://www.shss.strathmore.edu/dr-alice-karuri/
The Indian Ocean World Podcast is hosted by Dr. Philip Gooding, produced by Sam Gleave Riemann, and published under the SSHRC-funded Partnership “Appraising Risk, Past and Present.”