Indian Ocean Studies: Cultural, Social, and Political Perspectives

The Indian Ocean is famously referred to as the "cradle of globalization," as it facilitated cultural and economic exchanges between Africa, the Arab world, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and China, for 5000 years prior to European presence in the region. As this ocean's significance has gained increasing attention from scholars in recent years, few have examined the 'human' dimensions in Indian Ocean exchanges. Including the work of historians, geographers, anthropologists and literary analysts, each essay in this volume addresses a specific human factor, such as the fate of the creole in the Bay of Bengal, creolization as a globalized phenomenon, migrancy and diaspora, the lives of seafarers then and now, and the lives of those who inhabit the ocean's littoral. This volume is a necessary addition to the field of Indian Ocean studies.

About the Author

Ashraf Jamal is Senior Lecturer in Art History and Visual Culture at Rhodes University, South Africa. He has published numerous essays and monographs, namely Predicaments of Culture in South Africa and the co-authored Art in South Africa: The Future Present. With Shanti Moorthy he has edited an anthology of Southeast Asian fiction. He is also a director-playwright and fiction writer. Shanti Moorthy holds a medical degree from Melbourne University and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh. Formerly a dancer and nattuvanar with the Melbourne based Bharatam Dance Company and freelance scriptwriter for the Bombay based Antah UTV in Malaysia, Shanti is now a consultant otolaryngologist and Senior Lecturer in Anatomy at Monash University. She co-edited the final volume of Silverfish New Writing 7 in 2007 with Ashraf Jamal and is completing an MA in English Literature, situating the works of Abdulrazak Gurnah in the Indian Ocean World.