INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR ON INDO-PORTUGUESE HISTORY-XIV, NEW DELHI FEB 11-13, 2013
Prof. Pius Malekandathil shares the concept note for the latest seminar in the ISIPH series, to begin in New Delhi in the coming week. It will be attended by some 140 delegates from across the globe. Emaail: pius.malekandat...@gmail.com -------------------------------------------------- India, the Portuguese and the Indian Ocean Societies: Exchanges and Engagements The International Seminar on Indo-Portuguese History (ISIPH) is an international seminar series in history started in 1978 and continuing till date without a break. The first seminar of this series was held in 1978 at Panjim, Goa and since then it was held once in every three years either in India or in Europe or in Brazil, providing platform for scholars across the globe to look into the various aspects of Indo-Portuguese interactions, using various Indian and Portuguese archival materials. So far thirteen international seminars were held under the academic banner of ISIPH in different parts of the world and the last one was at Aix-en-Provence, France (2010). The seminar series have two categories of organizational committees, one at the international level and the other at the local level. In the last Indo-Portuguese seminar held at Aix-en-Provence, it was decided that the next seminar might be organized at New Delhi in 2012 and the international committee asked Prof. Pius Malekandathil (CHS, JNU) to co-ordinate and organize it at New Delhi with the help of Prof. Lotika Varadarajan and Prof. Amar Farooqui (Delhi University). The theme for this year's Indo-Portuguese Seminar (ISIPH-XIV) is India, the Portuguese and the Indian Ocean Societies: Exchanges and Engagements and it proposes to look into the meanings of larger interactions and exchanges that happened between different domains of India and the Portuguese on one hand and on the other, the consequent complex net-workings and ramifications in various societies of the Indian Ocean as mediated through the multiple challenges and responses of European expansion. Until now the Indo-Portuguese historiography has largely focused on the core areas of Portuguese activities on coastal India, leaving aside its major regional segments, with which the Portuguese had different layers of interactions. The long chain of Portuguese possessions in the Indian Ocean, known as Estado da India, had their headquarters located in Goa. Through the instrumentality and agency of the Estado and its personnel as well as multiple institutions, the Portuguese maintained various levels of interactions with different parts of India. From the initial interactions with the coastal economies and principalities of India, the Portuguese eventually expanded the frames of their dialogues to the political houses of Deccan and later to the domains of the Mughals, widening the character of their engagements from economy to culture. The International Seminar on Indo-Portuguese History-XIV provides platform for scholars to look into the nuances of these interactions that went beyond core areas to regions, from centralities to liminalities, from mainstreams to sub-streams and the connections thereof and therefrom. The Portuguese and different domains of India interacted and negotiated not as insular entities, but as part of larger connectivities in the Indian Ocean. The various Indian Ocean societies with their role in resisting or accepting one or another European power gave multi-layered meanings to the process of Luso-Indian engagements in this sub-continent. Hence the different levels of interaction that the Portuguese had with India is examined against the background of contestations for power, appropriation of trade and socio-cultural formation in the Indian Ocean in the interface of European expansion. While the centrality of the seminar is to find the meanings of Luso-Indian engagements within their regional specificities, the various European and Asian players that entered the scene to alter and re-define the formats of these dialogues would be a supplementing and complementing theme. The pattern of exchanges happening between the Portuguese and India is situated within the larger engagements in Indian Ocean against the context of commercial competition between various European and Asian players. The seminar will focus on the following sub-themes, but other sub-themes may also be considered: * Lusosphere and its Cultural Expressions * Science and Technology * Religion and Society * Migration and Diaspora * Economic Production and Exchange * The Politics of Expansion and Consolidation This seminar is organized in collaboration with Centro de Historia-Alem Mar(CHAM), Lisboa, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Fundação Oriente, Embassy of Portugal, Embassy of Brazil, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi University, Jamia Millia, ICCR, ICSSR, ICHR and INSA and the dates of the seminar are from 11-13 February, 2013. See: http://www.jnu.ac.in/Conference/IndoPortugueseHistoryXIV/about.htm