‘Les nouvelles perspectives de l’interconnected history pour l’étude des
relations entre l’Europe et l’océan indien’,
23 June 2011, University of South Brittany, Lorient, France
Before the start of actual conference, participants were treated to a tour of the Museum of the
French East India Company by its director, Brigitte Nicolas, followed by drinks and a lovely dinner in
town.
The conference began with an introduction by Gérard Le Bouëdec, who directs the University’s
research centre and who spoke on the history and historiography of both the centre and of research
on the Indian Ocean in general, and the East India Companies in particular. The first two papers gave
a good overview over different approaches. The first, by Christian Grataloup, Professor of Geography
at the University Paris VII, treated the first phase of globalisation and colonisation, from the 15 th to
the 18th centuries. The second, by Romain Bertrand, gave the perspective of a political scientist of
South Asia and discussed the Dutch-Malaysian encounter and the methodological challenges
involved in its historiography.
Maxine Berg’s intervention which followed was designed to give an overview of the – British –
historiography on the Indian Ocean from the perspective of interconnected history and material
cultures. It included a ten-minute presentation on the project and a few of the statistics that came
out of the study of the EIC letterbooks.
Om Prakash’s paper which followed focussed on the economic impact of the European companies
trading in Asia and made a very strong case for the economic benefits that India drew from this
commerce, too, claiming that the gains and advantages were mutual, that the role of European
traders in India was a positive one without clear domination by either side until the 1750s and
1760s.
What followed were slightly more specific studies, by Alexandra Curvello of the University of Lisbon,
giving a Portuguese view, in particular about the perception of Japanese Buddhism during the
Portuguese presence there, a talk beautifully illustrated with numerous artefacts. Hiroyasu Kimuzuka
and Evelyne Guihur, both from the CERHIO research centre at the University of South Brittany, spoke
about the Japanese closure to the west and the failure in missionary-local relations in the region
respectively.
The event was certainly rich and drew an audience from across the academic spectrum as well as
interested members of the general public, which made for interesting and varied questions and
discussions.