Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T22:48:02.503Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Living in the Material World: Cosmopolitanism and trade in early twentieth century Ladakh

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2012

JACQUELINE H. FEWKES
JACQUELINE H. FEWKES*
Affiliation:
Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College, Florida Atlantic University, 5353 Parkside Drive, Jupiter, FL 33458, USA Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The historical trading communities of early twentieth century Ladakh, in northern India, interacted with multiple cultures through both travel and the flow of trade goods. Using a neo-pragmatic philosophical framework, I will argue that this community—largely rural and commonly thought of as isolated—was, in fact, cosmopolitan. The traders' interactions with specific commodities prompted them to traverse cultural boundaries and engage with new ideas. This view of cosmopolitanism suggests that, while particular economic, political or social contexts may be part of the settings in which both individuals and communities are engaged in cosmopolitan processes, contexts do not define the cosmopolitan.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 46 , Issue 2: Sites of Asian Interaction , March 2012 , pp. 259 - 281
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 These borders are disputed, and the borders shown on this map do not necessarily represent the views of the author, but rather are those most commonly represented in Indian maps.

2 This map shows some of the main towns to which Leh was connected; these should not be thought of as end points, but rather as access points for trade that spread throughout the respective regions.

3 German geographer Ferdinand Von Richthofen (1833–1905) coined the term ‘Silk Road’ to describe the network of travel routes stretching between China and Eastern Europe, with branches that extended in north—south directions. The term the ‘Silk Route’ is misleading, as many types of goods actually travelled along these roads, including commodities such as perfumes, drugs, spices, precious stones, metals, cotton, dye-stuffs, coffee, tea, and art objects.

4 These routes have been categorized as one route each; however, they were actually a series of interconnected roads that traders might have chosen, depending on the weather, the goods they were carrying, and the type of financial backing they had for their expedition.

5 Rizvi, Janet, Trans-Himalayan Caravans (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 11–12Google Scholar.

6 Knight, E. F., Where Three Empires Meet: A Narrative of Recent Travel in Kashmir, Western Tibet, Gilgit and the Adjoining Countries (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1905), pp. 177–78Google Scholar.

7 The family has since opened a museum, which they have called the Munshi Aziz Bhat Museum, to showcase the variety of early twentieth century trade goods. This museum is one of the first regionally established historical institutions to display Ladakhi contributions to, and participation in, trade between South and Central Asia.

8 See for example, Gutmann, Amy, ‘The Challenge of Multiculturalism in Political Ethics’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 22 (3), 1993, pp. 171–206Google Scholar.

9 See, for example, Walzer, Michael, Interpretation and Social Criticism (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1987)Google Scholar.

10 The philosophical background for this paper was developed with Amy McLaughlin (Philosophy, Florida Atlantic University), in the co-authored article ‘Cosmopolitanism as Process: Conceptual Fluidity and Cultural Boundary Jumping’, currently under review for publication. In this section I have summarized the main points of that argument.

11 Bohman, James, ‘Citizenship and Norms of Publicity: Wide Public Reason in Cosmopolitan Societies’, Political Theory, 27, 1999, pp. 176–202CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially p. 193.

12 Hanson, Norwood Russell, Patterns of Discovery (London and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1975)Google Scholar.

13 Banerjee, D., Colonialism in Action: Trade, Development and Dependence in Late Colonial India (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 1999), pp. 167–71Google Scholar.

14 Travis, Anthony, ‘Perkin's Mauve: Ancestor of the Organic Chemical Industry’, Technology and Culture, 31 (1), 1990, pp. 13, 51–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Markovits, Claude, The Global World of Indian Merchants 1750–1947: Traders of Sind from Bukhara to Panama (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 312CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Allen, G. C., A Short Economic History of Modern Japan 1867–1937 (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1972), p. 231Google Scholar.

17 Allen, A Short Economic History, pp. 71–72.

18 Allen, A Short Economic History, p. 72.

19 Wingate, P. J., The Colorful Du Pont Company (Wilmington, Delaware: Serendipity Press, 1982), pp. 15–24Google Scholar.

20 Ahmed, Monisha, Living Fabric: Weaving among the Nomads of Ladakh Himalaya (Trumbull, Connecticut: Weatherhill, 2002)Google Scholar.

21 Wingate, The Colorful Du Pont Company.

22 Cannabis indica was identified in 1783 by a French naturalist and considered distinct from the European Cannabis sativa, the former being more resinous with greater psychoactive properties and the latter more fibrous. Although some authors still adhere to this distinction, later researchers have contradicted the typology, claiming that variation is purely dependent on regional conditions.

23 Jammu and Kashmir in 1939–40, General Summary of the Administration Report for S. 1996–97, Ranbir Government Press.

24 Grinspoon, Lester, The History of Cannabis (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

25 Grinspoon, History of Cannabis.

26 Johnston, James F., The Chemistry of Common Life (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1878), pp. 95–96Google Scholar.

27 Johnston, Chemistry of Common Life, pp. 98–99.

28 Abel, Ernest L., A Marihuana Dictionary: Words, Terms, Events, and Persons Relating to Cannabis (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1982)Google Scholar.

29 Hasan, Khwaja A., ‘Social Aspects of the Use of Cannabis in India’, in Rubin, V. (ed.), Cannabis and Culture (The Hague, Paris: Mouton Publishers, 1975)Google Scholar.

30 It is worth noting that for these villagers ‘being cosmopolitan’ did not necessarily constitute an identity. The issue of how identities are distinct from the cosmopolitan process is discussed later in this paper.

31 Anna were each worth one-sixteenth of a rupee; paisa were each worth one-quarter of an anna.

32 Clausen, Christopher, Faded Mosaic: The Emergence of Post-cultural America (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000)Google Scholar.

33 Andrew, A. Piatt, ‘The End of the Mexican Dollar’, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 18 (3), 1904, pp. 321–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially pp. 322–23.

34 Garnett, Porter, ‘The History of the Trade Dollar’, The American Economic Review, 7 (1), 1917, pp. 91–97Google Scholar, especially p. 91.

35 The Vikrami calendar is also called Bikrami or Vikram Samvat calendar among different communities of South Asia.

36 Discussed by Stephen Jay Gould, this is ‘the propensity to convert an abstract concept (like intelligence) into a hard entity (like the amount of quantifiable brain stuff)’. See Gould, Stephen J., The Mismeasure of Man (New York: Norton & Co., 1996)Google Scholar.