The Indian Ocean World Podcast

Jenny Goldstein - Indonesia’s Peatlands and Environmental Politics

In this podcast, the IOWC interviews Professor Jenny Goldstein of Cornell University on her research into Indonesia's peatlands. Her interview offers a discussion of her unique journey from architecture to geography, and an in-depth explanation of how the Indonesian peatlands became her subject of study. She further explores the value of so-called degraded lands from a biodiversity and regenerative standpoint, exploring diverse techniques of rice growth in Peatland environments. Moreover, Professor Goldstein offers a nuanced understanding of how the development of oil palm plantations on Indonesia's peat lands has had multiple effects, including production of divergent scientific knowledge on whether oil palm plantations across Indonesia's peat lands lead to more carbon emissions or not, how these debates shape legislations concerning agriculture and forests in Indonesia, and what could be the climatic impact of such policies eventually.
Relevant Links:
University bio: https://cals.cornell.edu/jenny-elaine-goldstein
 
Online piece about the Mega Rice Project: http://www.environmentandsociety.org/arcadia/carbon-bomb-indonesias-failed-mega-rice-project
 
Links to relevant publications:
https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12576
https://doi.org/10.1111/sjtg.12319
https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X15599787
 
This podcast was produced with the help of Renée Manderville (Project Manager, IOWC), Archisman Chaudhuri and Philip Gooding (both postdoctoral fellows, IOWC, McGill).

Rosabelle Boswell - Ocean Cultures and Heritage

Professor Rosabelle Boswell (Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University) discusses with Philip Gooding (IOWC) her recent appointment as the South African Research Chair in Ocean cultures and heritage. This is a new and exciting position designed to contribute to the sustainability of the ocean and to build partnerships with stakeholders. Prof. Boswell discusses her aims for the position, its interdisciplinary characteristics, the challenges therein, and how her past and ongoing research engages with the themes of ocean cultures and heritages.
For the articles mentioned in the podcast, see:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17458927.2017.1319603
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19480881.2016.1270010
This podcast was produced with the help of Renée Manderville (Project Manager, IOWC), Archisman Chaudhuri and Philip Gooding (both postdoctoral fellows, IOWC, McGill).

Mustafa Emre Günaydı - Contextualizing Environmental Contingencies

To start off the second season of the Indian Ocean World Podcast, we had the pleasure of interviewing Mustafa Emre Günaydı, a PhD student at Iowa State University, and research assistant working on the IOWC's Appraising Risk Partnership. In our podcast, Günaydi presents his ongoing research into the environmental history of the Ottoman Empire, analyzing the effects of the floods, epidemic, and locust invasion that occurred in Baghdad in 1831 within the context of wider geopolitical developments. He further discusses the responses to both the human and natural challenges that accompanied such disasters, and how leadership within the Ottoman Empire and Baghdad sought to rectify the damages.
For more on Mustafa’s work, see his Iowa State profile: https://history.iastate.edu/directory/mustafa-emre-gunaydi/
This podcast was produced with the help of Renée Manderville (Project Manager, IOWC), Archisman Chaudhuri and Philip Gooding (both postdoctoral fellows, IOWC, McGill).

Gwyn Campbell - The Travels of Robert Lyall

Gwyn Campbell, founding director of the IOWC, discusses with Philip Gooding, a postdoctoral fellow at the same institution, his forthcoming book, The Travels of Robert Lyall, 1789-1831: Scottish surgeon, naturalist and British agent to the court of Madagascar, which will be published with Palgrave in early 2021: https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030516475
The discussion takes the listener through Scotland, London, Russia, and Madagascar. It explores several themes in IOW history, including imperialism, slavery, missionaries, indigenous institutions and beliefs, and the latter’s political, cultural, and social encounters with European empires and ideologies.
This podcast was produced with the help of Renée Manderville (Project Manager, IOWC), Archisman Chaudhuri and Philip Gooding (both postdoctoral fellows, IOWC, McGill).

Joseph McQuade - A Genealogy of Terrorism

Dr. Joseph McQuade (University of Toronto) discusses his recently published book, A Genealogy of Terrorism: Colonial law and the origins of an idea (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 2020), as well as his ongoing postdoctoral research.
In A Genealogy of Terrorism, McQuade demonstrates how the modern concept of terrorism was shaped by colonial emergency laws dating back into the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Beginning with the ‘thugs’, ‘pirates’, and ‘fanatics’ of the nineteenth century, McQuade traces the emerging and novel legal category of ‘the terrorist’ in early twentieth-century colonial law, ending with an examination of the first international law to target global terrorism in the 1930s. Drawing on a wide range of archival research and a detailed empirical study of evolving emergency laws in British India, he argues that the idea of terrorism emerged as a deliberate strategy by officials seeking to depoliticize the actions of anti-colonial revolutionaries, and that many of the ideas embedded in this colonial legislation continue to shape contemporary understandings of terrorism today.
Publication: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108896238
This podcast was produced with the help of Renée Manderville (Project Manager, IOWC), Philip Gooding, and Archisman Chaudhuri (both postdoctoral fellows, IOWC, McGill)

Angela Schottenhammer - Maritime Disasters, Risk Appraisals, and Exchanges of Medicinal Knowledge in Maritime East Asia

Prof. Angela Schottenhammer (KU Leuven) discusses her and her team’s ongoing research into maritime disasters, risk appraisals, and exchanges of medicinal knowledge in East Asian Waters in c.1500-1800. Several themes are discussed, which transcend the disciplines of climate history, maritime archaeology, and medical history. She refers to typhoons, currents, diseases, and the material cultures of medical practitioners, referring to both East Asian and European sources.
Prof. Schottenhammer and her team are furthermore working on a video called, ‘Piracy in Historical Asia.’ It will be published here, where you can also find out more details now.
Prof. Schottenhammer has additionally published (and continues to publish) widely. More details can be found at https://crossroads-research.net; and https://schottenhammer.net. Additionally, some of her most important recent and forthcoming publications include:
Angela Schottenhammer (ed.), Early Global Interconnectivity Across the Indian Ocean World, 2 vols (Cham, CH: Palgrave, 2019): vol. I, Commercial Structures and Exchanges; vol. II, Exchange of Ideas, Religions, and Technologies.
Robert Antony and Angela Schottenhammer (eds.), Beyond the Silk Roads: New Discourses on China’s Role in East Asian Maritime History (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 2017) 
Wim De Winter, Angela Schottenhammer, Mathieu Torck (eds.), Seafaring, Trade, and Knowledge Transfer:  Maritime Politics and Commerce in Early Middle Period to Early Modern China [CROS Crossroads – History of Interactions across the Silk Routes] (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2021), forthcoming.
Angela Schottenhammer, “‘Peruvian Balsam’: An Example of Transoceanic Transfer of Medicinal Knowledge’, Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 16:69 (2020), 1-20.
 Angela Schottenhammer, “Major ‘International’ Currencies of China and Japan: The Use of Copper Coins, Silver Ingots and Paper Money”, in Steven Serel, Gwyn Campbell (eds.), Currencies of the Indian Ocean World (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 17-48.
Angela Schottenhammer, “Die zunehmende Einbindung Chinas in die Welt des Indischen Ozeans bis zum Beginn der Song-Dynastie: Seewege, Verbindungen und Handel”, in Raimund Schulz (Hrsg.), Maritime Entdeckung und Expansion. Kontinuitäten, Parallelen und Brüche von der Antike bis in die Neuzeit, Sonderband der Historischen Zeitschrift (Oldenburg: De Gruyter Verlag, 2019), 139-173.
Angela Schottenhammer, “16-18 seiki ni okeru taiheiyō o matagu suigin no mitsu bōeki” アンゲラ・ショッテンハマー著、「16－18世紀における太平洋を跨ぐ水銀の密貿易」, transl. by Hideaki Suzuki 鈴木英明, in Hideaki Suzuki 鈴木英明編訳 (ed.) Nettowaku to kaiiki: Higashi Ajia kara yūbō suru sekaishi 『ネットワークと海域―東アジアから眺望する世界史』(Akashi shoten, 2019), 230-264.
Angela Schottenhammer, “China’s Rise and Retreat as a Maritime Power”, in Robert Antony, Angela Schottenhammer (eds.), New Discourses on China’s Role in East Asian Maritime History (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 2017), 189-211.
Angela Schottenhammer, “Consolidating Southeast Asia and the Meaning of Force in History: Pax Ming and the Case of Chen Zuyi 陳祖義 (d. 1407)”, China and Asia: A Journal of Historical Studies (2021), forthcoming.
 Angela Schottenhammer, Mathieu Torck, Wim De Winter, “Surgeons and Physicians on the Move in the Asian Waters (15th to 18th Centuries)”, Haiyangshi yanjiu 海洋史研究 (2021), in press.
 Angela Schottenhammer, “Maritime Disasters and Risk Appraisals in the East Asian Waters”, Études thématiques (2021), forthcoming.
 Angela Schottenhammer, “Some Remarks on the Use and Provision of Camphor in Early Modern China and in Spanish Asian and American Colonies”, in Festschrift for Paul David Buell, ed. by Timothy May (2021), forthcoming.
 Angela Schottenhammer, “Insights into Global Maritime Trade Around 1600”, in Festschrift for Ranabir Chakravarti, ed. By Suchandra Gosh et al. (Bloomsbury: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021), forthcoming.
This podcast was produced with the help of Renée Manderville (Project Manager, IOWC), Philip Gooding, and Archisman Chaudhuri (both postdoctoral fellows, IOWC, McGill).

Xu Zhexin - Tang-Song Transition Era Maritime Activities in East and Southeast Asia

With the help of Dr. Alexander Jost, Xu Zhexin (both University of Salzburg) discusses his PhD research into the history of maritime activities in South and Southeast China and its neighbouring regions during the co-called Tang-Song transition period, which is based on his analysis of official records, inscription sources, and visual materials. Thank you also to Prof. Angela Schottenhammer (KU Leuven) for facilitating this interview.
For more on Prof. Schottenhammer’s work and Xu Zhexin’s place in it, see: https://crossroads-research.net/team/
This podcast was produced with the help of Renée Manderville (Project Manager, IOWC), Philip Gooding, and Archisman Chaudhuri (both postdoctoral fellows, IOWC, McGill).

Shaila Seshia Galvin - Sustainable Organic Farming and Questions of Value

Prof. Shaila Seshia Galvin (Graduate Institute of International Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland) discusses her anthropological and sociological work on organic Basmati rice farming in the Doon Valley, Uttarakhand,  India. She explores how a locally produced commodity acquires new meanings through organic certification procedures, as well as the socio-economic and cultural implications of such agrarian practices for sustainable trade and development.
For more information about Prof. Galvin’s work, please see:
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300215014/becoming-organic/
https://doi.org/10.1111/amet.12704
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105070
This podcast was produced with the help of Renée Manderville (Project Manager, IOWC), Philip Gooding, and Archisman Chaudhuri (both postdoctoral fellows, IOWC, McGill).

Meera Muralidharan - Hortus Malabaricus: Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the Production of Natural History Knowledge in Malabar (1678-1693)

Meera Muralidharan, a doctoral researcher at the School of History, Victoria University, Wellington, discusses her paper, ‘Hortus Malabaricus: Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the Production of Natural History Knowledge in Malabar (1678-1693),’ which won the Research Excellence Award at the Victoria University Awards in 2019 and is a part of her doctoral research. Key themes include global transfers of knowledge, human migration, colonial science, and modern environmental history.
For more on Meera’s work, see her profile at: https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/nziri/fellows/associate-fellows/meera-g-muralidharan
Also, see her recent publication:
‘Cross-Cultural Interactions and Missionary Writings in the Context of the Dutch East India Company, c. 1600–72’ in Malabar in the Indian Ocean: Cosmopolitanism in a Maritime Historical Region, eds. Mahmood Kooria and M.N. Pearson (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2018).
This podcast was produced with the help of Renée Manderville (Project Manager, IOWC), Philip Gooding, and Archisman Chaudhuri (both postdoctoral fellows, IOWC, McGill).

Anna Winterbottom - ‘Becoming Traditional’: A Transnational History of Neem and Biopiracy Discourses

Dr. Anna Winterbottom (McGill) discusses her forthcoming journal article, ‘”Becoming traditional”: A transnational history of neem and biopiracy discourses,’ which is due to be published in 2021 in Osiris. The article is part of a special issue entitled ‘Global medical cultures, properties and laws,’ and explores the shifting uses and cultural meanings of neem, a tree of the mahogany family native to South and Southeast Asia, over time and space. Specifically, the article and the podcast discussion examine how neem became associated with the idea of ‘traditional’ Indian medicine as Western medical companies sought patents on neem derivatives in the 1990s.
For the article, see: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/713897
For more on Dr. Winterbottom’s work, see: https://indianoceanworldcentre.com/research_affiliates/anna-winterbottom/
Also, please check out Dr. Winterbottom’s seminal monograph: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9781137380203
This podcast was produced with the help of Renée Manderville (Project Manager, IOWC), Philip Gooding, and Archisman Chaudhuri (both postdoctoral fellows, IOWC, McGill).