Chapter 16 - Postscript: The Many Worlds of Monsoon Asia

Summary

Abstract

In this postscript I will suggest that the themes, vocabularies and conceptual fields that are at the heart of this volume invite the perceptive reader to think beyond the region covered and reach out to much broader ideas of space, time and identities. In particular, it calls us to navigate the Oceanic turn in history writing where fluidity and liquid spaces are increasingly shifting to the centre stage.

Keywords: circulation; oceanic histories; postcolonialism; Area Studies

Spaces of circulation

The region we call Monsoon Asia inhabits many places and times. It bears the traces of a vibrant past of overlapping, creolized and interdependent worlds. It is a palimpsest creatively evoked by the authors of the present volume that is posed between interrelated fields – archaeology, philology, linguistics, global history, politics and area studies. Grounded in source material in the local languages of the region and engaging with this material and the constellation of already existing works in a critical manner, this volume is particularly concerned with vernacular frameworks of significance. It seamlessly propels analysis outside the familiar space, giving agency to a variety of forms of expression.

Monsoon Asia urges us to think of the terms we use when referring to the type of relations that were forged between places and people over the centuries. These were spaces where cultures circulated and collided and where multiple meanings intersected. The network metaphor is usefully deployed to describe the movement of people, things and ideas in the region. Manguin, for instance, refers to a “Bay of Bengal Interaction Sphere” where trans-cultural and mutual processes took place within complex sets of networks, in terms of chronology, of directionality, of quality or of intensity. Ricci and Kooria enlist the trope of “cosmopolis” to think through intercultural exchange in the region, as a refashioning of local diversities in literature, architecture or law. Stolte writes how connections within Monsoon Asia shaped socialist Asianism during decolonization and the early Cold War; and challenged pre-war and post-war contexts as separate.