Subaltern lives : history, identity and memory in the Indian Ocean world

In this paper, I will explore some of the methodological challenges of writing subaltern histories of the Indian Ocean. I will argue that the intense mobility that underpinned society and social transformation on water, land, littoral and river rendered subaltern peoples targets of colonial management and surveillance, within and across European empires. Though productive of a rich disciplinary archive, that archive is scattered across cities, states and nations, and this has had important implications for the production of national or imperial-centred ‘history.’ I will try to suggest some of the ways in which we can work ‘along the archival grain,’ to bring histories of continents, islands and empires into dialogue with histories of slavery, migration and forced labour. Drawing on the rich possibilities of ethnographic and anthropological research with the descendants of slaves, indentured labourers and convicts, I will also argue for a specifically feminist methodological approach to the study of people's sense of history and identity in the world today. As genealogical resources proliferate, I will urge in particular productive engagement with family historians, as well as with community associations and their everyday material sites of historical memory.