Objectives, historiography and traditions of understanding

While the tensions produced by globalisation can result in clashes, they may also lead to new forms of mediation, dialogue and understanding. Research within the proposed network aim at reaching a better grasp of how this ambiguity works itself out, and the participants are drawn from across the Indian Ocean and beyond – from South Africa, India and Denmark, as well as Norway and Italy – thus aiming to represent an exemplary organisational model for undertaking meaningful transnational research.

Until recently, the study of the Indian Ocean remained a marginal pursuit, because research in the humanities and social sciences operated within national boundaries. Anything that fell between national boundaries tended to disappear from analytical view. With intensified globalisation, this situation is changing with scholars turning to study the institutions and practices that facilitate circulation between nation states. In this context, studies of oceanic systems of trade and circulation have become prominent, as well as of ‘diaspora’ interaction, and – as indicated in the studies of Leif Manger and others – the Indian Ocean is emerging as an important domain for the study of processes of cultural transnationalism.

The proposed network brings together research projects on cultural interaction – historical and contemporary – in and between societies around the Indian Ocean. It will develop new approaches to the study of culture and globalisation through collaboration that allows Danish researchers in comparatively small research environments to benefit from collaboration with leading researchers in India and South Africa as well as Nordic and European colleagues. On their part, the Danish researchers will bring to the network excellence and experience based on earlier partnerships with research environments in the South.

As numerous studies have indicated, issues of globalisation and culture constitute a complex area, because ideas of culture, religion and civilisation tend to be conflated. In his study of Islamic neo-fundamentalisms, Olivier Roy makes the point that Samuel Huntington’s widely cited neo-conservative view of the ‘clash of civilisations’ depends on the idea that civilisations and cultures are based on religion. Opponents of Huntington’s ideas respond by calling for multiculturalist dialogue and reconciliation between different faiths/cultures. According to Roy, however, their premise remains the same – that ‘there are distinct cultures, each based on a specific religion.’

Many commentators understand neofundamentalisms as pinned to a fixed culturo-religious identity, which hardens in reaction to Western domination. Yet, other scholars maintain that neofundamentalisms in fact delink religion and culture – local cultural forms compromise the purity of fundamentalist ideas, which are generally an attempt to re-universalise religious beliefs. Rather than dividing people on the basis of cultures, fundamentalists divide the world into believers and non-believers. Christian Pentecostalism conforms to this model, as do neo-fundamentalist versions of Islam.

One precondition for a clearer discussion of culture and globalisation is the unpicking of concepts of religion, culture and civilisation. The Indian Ocean allows us to do this. As one of the oldest trading systems in the world, the Indian Ocean offers special opportunities for examining a longue durée of globalisation and the interaction of cultures.

Sugata Bose emphasises the need for renewed studies of the Indian Ocean world by demonstrating that it can provide a post-multiculturalist model for thinking about cultural interaction and globalisation. If the ‘clash of civilisations’ opens up a prospect of everlasting war, the Indian Ocean as historical space in Bose’s view has been a laboratory for creating ‘hybrid and polyphonic languages of translation’ between ‘multiple and competing universalisms’.

The Indian Ocean has been characterised as an ‘inter-regional arena’, a set of networks articulating trade, religious and cultural systems that have long interlinked Malays, Chinese, Indians, Arabs and Africans. It is also an arena, where Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Portugal, and USA came into contact with Africa, the Middle East and Asia, and formed ideas of ‘the Orient’.

The European presence in the Indian Ocean dates back to the 15th century. But until the late 18th century, Europeans remained a marginal presence. It was only with the rise of formal colonial rule from the mid-19th century that European powers came to exert effective dominance. An effect of this was the creation of a transnational labour market in which indentured labourers were transported from India to plantation colonies, many around the Indian Ocean. The Indian Ocean became a site of transnational colonial subjects, and an important space for the forging of modes of transnational governmentality, as well as of notions of religious community and identity.

The Indian Ocean functioned as an important anti-colonial arena in which ideas of anti-imperialism emerged transnationally. The Indian Ocean was the primary site in which Gandhi formulated his ideas of non-violent resistance and unity across religious differences. Ideas of African-Asian solidarity were first tested in the arena of the Indian Ocean, and nationalist movements in India and in East and Southern Africa developed their objectives and self-understandings through transnational exchange and dialogue, made possible by travel, diaspora formation, and the emergence of widely dispersed media within a transnational public sphere.

Focus areas

Basing itself on the expertise and ongoing projects of the researchers involved, the network will focus its work on two central areas that are closely interrelated and have represented the most intensive fields for cultural and political interaction and the contestation of identity strategies in the Indian Ocean world:

a) Cultural clashes and mediations around fundamentalisms and religious movements

Research projects here are concerned with Indian and African Islam in South Africa, Kenya and Uganda, and with transnational networks of Islamic organisations and of migrants stretching between South and East Africa, the Middle East and India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Another focus is the dynamics of interaction between Hindu fundamentalism in Africa and India, and the spread of new types of Christianity as well as the role of conversions as a form of cultural mobilisation. Projects are directed at debate between religious positions and the media and institutions involved in this, which are important constituents in the formation of new structures of transnational public culture. The themes of debate constitute another focus, including new areas of moral and political concern emerging in the context of violence, forced migration, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and global climate change.

b) The transnational history of nationalisms and the emergence of new universalisms

Research under this heading investigates the Indian Ocean world as a space of competing discourses of race, caste, community, civilisation, religion etc., which at times inform the idea of nation, and at other times transgress it. Race and caste are often seen as belonging respectively to Africa and India, but around the Indian Ocean they become relational and interactive. Connections and migration between Goa and Africa are central in this respect, where a long history of political alliances and oppositions cut across national boundaries. Research brought together within the network includes studies of the involvement of ‘Asians’ in colonial hegemonies of citizenship in South and East Africa, as well as of their role in anti-colonial and nationalist struggles, and of dialogues between nationalists across the Indian Ocean. A central focus is the role of newspapers, cinema, radio, television, and the Internet in the creation of diasporic audiences and transnational public spheres.

Religious movements and nationalisms both have a long history of prominence in interactions between Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, but they also represent new dynamics that have come to the fore as part of recently intensified globalisation. In the context of massive flows of migration, of new Islamic movements and Evangelist Christianity, religion and politics have come together in new ways, which transgress nation state boundaries, and may both undermine and reinforce nationalist discourse. By developing synergies between the two focus areas, and integrating the work of leading Danish researchers and international capacities in the field, the network will provide new frameworks and perspectives for the understanding of the cultural and political dynamics of globalisation, and the reach and impact of the forms of mobilisation, representation and reaction they bring about.

Organisation of network and plan of activities

The network is based on a core group of researchers in Denmark, South Africa, India, Norway and Italy, but will expand as other researchers register for its conferences and workshops and join its e-mail list. It will be coordinated by a group of seven researchers from the Department of Society and Globalisation at Roskilde University, the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society in Bangalore, Jamia Milia Islamia University, New Delhi, and the Centre for Indian Studies in Africa at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

The network’s activities during the two years from 1 August 2008 to 31 July 2010 will centre on three international conferences – one in South Africa in early 2009, one in India in late 2009, and one in Denmark in 2010. In between these a number of workshops will be held in Denmark and elsewhere aimed at interaction between network researchers and specialists and a wider community of Danish researchers.

In connection with the workshops and the conference held in Denmark, funding will be applied for from the Danish Graduate School for Regional Studies and the Graduate School of International Development Studies at Roskilde to allow researcher training activities for PhD students and post-doctoral fellows to benefit from the presence of network researchers.

A web site and an e-mail distribution list will be created to facilitate discussions and on-line conferencing between conferences and workshops.

Expected outcomes

Three major peer-reviewed publications will be the main outcomes of the network conferences and interaction:

• an anthology of essays on transnational religious mobilization around the India Ocean, edited by Pamila Gupta, Preben Kaarsholm and Rochelle Pinto, and published by Seagull Books, London and Calcutta.

• a special issue of the Journal of Southern African Studies on Indian Ocean nationalisms, edited by Bodil Folke Frederiksen, Isabel Hofmeyr and Lakshmi Subramaniam.

• an anthology on the Indian Ocean as visionary area, edited by Bodil Folke Frederiksen and Preben Kaarsholm, and published by James Currey Publishers, Oxford.

A longer-term outcome will be an application for funding for a research programme, representing more closely integrated collaboration between the Danish and international network partners.