'Process Geographies' of mobility and movement in the Indian Ocean : A review article

In a recent essay on directions in Indian Ocean studies, Markus P.M. Vink has reviewed eloquently maritime-based scholarship since the 1950s, and presented the concept of '"new thalassology"' (from the Greek thalassa, or sea) as a means of defining future research. Drawing out the significance of a rich set of studies that has emerged from critical reflection in the Indian Ocean context on Braudelian ideas about the importance of geo-historical structures and 'deep time', Wallerstein's concept of world-systems analysis, the meaning of 'core' and 'periphery', and internal regional dynamism, Vink surveys an impressive set of literature to argue for the importance of 'process geographies' of the Indian Ocean that historicize and localize 'porousness, permeability, connectedness, flexibility, and openness of spatial and temporal boundaries and borders.' Vink suggests that one way forward for a 'new thalassology' that respects the flexibility of the Indian Ocean as a geographical and virtual space is a focus on the movement of individuals, communities, and cultural practices. Echoing Michael Pearson, he argues that this renders possible histories in rather than of the region. The books reviewed here each address that proposition, and so both individually and collectively represent a significant intervention into the historiography of the Indian Ocean world.