ENTANGLED HISTORIES: Cloves and the Making of Diaspora in the Age of Empire

The talk looks at the history of the clove as it moves across the Indian Ocean from the Moluccas in Indonesia to Mauritius and the Swahili coast in East Africa on its onward journey to Europe and America. It unpacks the clove trail to reflect on a corresponding rich diaspora that is produced on its route all along the ocean’s littoral. The micro-optic on the ethnically diverse and aspirational diaspora that sustains the clove journey reveals the functioning of a vibrant trans Asian-African space that powers politics both in its host location as well as in the parent societies. The talk forefronts the agility of the diaspora as a counter to the more familiar narrative that privileges the expansion of Western capital and technology as key to the writing of global history in the age of Empire. Speaker: Seema Alavi, Professor of History, Ashoka University, India; Fellow of the British Academy