Making of the Southwest Indian Littoral: Colonial Mediations, Religion and Marginality

The Southwest Indian littoral occupies a prominent role in the history of trade and colonisation. The strategical location of the ports such as Cochin, Mormugao and Thoothukudi in the Southwestern shores made them flourishing centres of trade for merchants as well as the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British colonisers. These port cities and towns became the site of major cultural, political and economic transformations. The merging of cultures created a diverse society in terms of ethnicity, religion and race quite differently from other regions in the country. However, the flow of culture was also mediated through the possibilities of economic profit by the colonisers even though it had some unintended consequences.

This workshop aims to explore the mediations in the form of -trade, colonialism and religion- in the southwest littoral over the last three centuries. It will gather South Asian scholars with diverse thematic expertise, whose contributions will etch out the colonial history, questions of citizenship in relation to colonialism, religious impressions informed by the past and the making of urban space in the southwest littoral.

Programme

10:00 am – 1:00 pm Flows of Trade, Food and Religion

| Ophira Gamliel, Theology and Religious Studies, The University of Glasgow
Disconnected Histories Jewish Networks in Cochin 1344-1616

| Mahmood Kooria, Leiden University & Ashoka University
In Search of a Name: Women-Centered Social System, Predicaments of Concepts, and Southwest Indian Littoral

| Miriam Benteler, University of Weimar
Sea and seafood: A note on the Latin Catholics of coastal Kerala and their diet

Break

2:00 pm – 4:00 pm Urbanity and ‘Difference’ in Cochin

| Anjana Singh, University of Groningen
Colonial Cochin: Race, Colour and Belonging in 18th Century Malabar

| Carmel Christy K J, University of Delhi & IIAS, Leiden
Making Ships in the ‘haunted’ land: Urban Space-making in Cochin

Workshop organised by Carmel Christi Kattithara, International Institute for Asian studies Postdoctoral fellow.