Connectivity in Motion

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxvi

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2. Themes

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. Introduction

      • Burkhard Schnepel

      Pages 3-31

   3. Islands Connect: People, Things, and Ideas Among the Small Islands of the Western Indian Ocean

      • Edward A. Alpers

      Pages 33-55

   4. Small Island Hubs and Connectivity in the Indian Ocean World: Some Concepts and Hypotheses from Historical Anthropology

      • Andre Gingrich

      Pages 57-91

   5. Displaced Passengers: States, Movements, and Disappearances in the Indian Ocean

      • Godfrey Baldacchino

      Pages 93-108

3. Case Studies: Swahili Coast, Zanzibar and the Comoros

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 109-109

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   2. The Role of Kilwa in the Trade of the Western Indian Ocean

      • Gwyn Campbell

      Pages 111-134

   3. Zanzibar, the Indian Ocean, and Nineteenth-Century Global Interface

      • Jeremy Prestholdt

      Pages 135-157

   4. Ali Mfaume: A Comorian Hub in the Western Indian Ocean

      • Iain Walker

      Pages 159-180

   5. Multifaceted Identities, Multiple Dwellings: Connectivity and Flexible Household Configurations in Zanzibar Town

      • Kjersti Larsen

      Pages 181-206

4. Case Studies: Mid-Ocean Archipelagos

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 207-207

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   2. A Hub of “Local Cosmopolitans”: Migration and Settlement in Early Eighteenth to Nineteenth-Century Port Louis

      • Vijayalakshmi Teelock

      Pages 209-229

   3. The Making of a Hub Society: Mauritius’ Path from Port of Call to Cyber Island

      • Burkhard Schnepel

      Pages 231-257

   4. Dis/Entangled Hubs: Connectivity and Disconnections in the Chagos Archipelago

      • Steffen F. Johannessen

      Pages 259-287

   5. Big Men Politics and Insularity in the Maldivian World of Islands

      • Boris Wille

      Pages 289-317

   6. Considering the Island Capital Male’ as a Hub for Health-Related Mobilities

      • Eva-Maria Knoll

      Pages 319-343

5. Case Studies: South and Southeast Asia

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 345-345

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   2. From Salsette to Socotra: Islands across the Seas and Implications for Heritage

      • Himanshu Prabha Ray

      Pages 347-367

   3. Serendipitous Connections: The Chinese Engagements with Sri Lanka

      • Tansen Sen

      Pages 369-395

This original collection brings islands to the fore in a growing body of scholarship on the Indian Ocean, examining them as hubs or points of convergence and divergence in a world of maritime movements and exchanges. Straddling history and anthropology and grounded in the framework of connectivity, the book tackles central themes such as smallness, translocality, and “the island factor.” It moves to the farthest reaches of the region, with a rich variety of case studies on the Swahili-Comorian world, the Maldives, Indonesia, and more. With remarkable breadth and cohesion, these essays capture the circulations of people, goods, rituals, sociocultural practices, and ideas that constitute the Indian Ocean world. Together, they take up “islandness” as an explicit empirical and methodological issue as few have done before.

• Indian Ocean islands
• Indian Ocean world
• Comparative Ethnography
• Island Studies
• Indian Ocean history
• island hubs
• Western Indian Ocean history
• Connectivity
• the island factor
• pre-colonial Indian Ocean world
• history of maritime trade
• subnational island jurisdictions
• history of Kilwa trade
• Zanzibar consumer culture
• Comoros diaspora
• Chagos archipelago
• Big Men politics
• Maldives healthcare
• Ambon spice trade
• area studies

“Connectivity in Motion is a rare achievement. Bringing together a rich variety of original perspectives, this collection takes the cutting-edge concept of connectivity as its anchor, applying it to the role of Indian Ocean islands. This is an innovative move, and the result is timely and relevant to scholars across many disciplines, including anthropology and geography. Emerging from a uniquely close cooperation between historians and anthropologists, the fascinating case studies presented here will advance new methodologies for studying maritime regions.” (Julia Verne, Professor of Geography, University of Bonn, Germany)

• Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany

  Burkhard Schnepel

• Department of History, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, USA

  Edward A. Alpers

Burkhard Schnepel is Professor of Social Anthropology at the Martin Luther University in Halle, Germany, and a Fellow at the Max Planck Institute of Social Anthropology. 


Edward A. Alpers is Research Professor in the Department of History at the University of California, Los Angeles, USA

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