Belonging across the Bay of Bengal

Michael Laffan is Professor of History at Princeton University, USA. He has worked on histories of Islam and colonialism with specific reference to Indonesians and their relationship with the Middle East. He is the author of Islamic Nationhood and Colonial Indonesia (2003) and The Makings of Indonesian Islam (2011).

• List of FiguresAcknowledgementsList of AbbreviationsIntroduction: Dhows, Steamers, Lifeboats Michael Laffan (Princeton University, USA)Part One: Sacred Itineraries, Indian Bodies1. Buddhist Networks across the Indian Ocean: Trans-Regional Strategies and Affiliations, Anne Blackburn (Cornell University, USA)2. Borobudur in the Light of Asia: Scholars, Pilgrims, and Knowledge Networks of Greater India, Marieke Bloembergen (Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, Leiden, Netherlands)3. Keramats Running Amuck: Islamic Parahistories of Travel, Belonging, Crimes, and Madness, Terenjit Sevea (University of Pennsylvania, USA)4. The Second Sikh: Exile, Panic, and Memory in the Straits Settlement, Arjun Naidu (Leiden University, Netherlands)Part Two: Merchants, Migrations, Rights5. "Money-Making Is Their Prime Concern": Markets, Mobility, and Matrimony among South Indian Muslims in Colonial Southeast Asia Torsten Tschacher (Free University of Berlin, Germany)6. Transcultural Intimacies in British Burma and the Straits Settlements: A History of Belonging, Difference, and Empire, Chie Ikeya (Rutgers University, USA)7. Citizens, Aryans and Indians in Colonial Lanka: Discourses on Belonging in the 1920s-1930s, Nira Wickramasinghe (Leiden University, Netherlands)Part Three: Hybridities Betwixt and Beyond8. Calling the Other Shore: Tamil Studies and Decolonization, Bhavani Raman (University of Toronto, Canada)9. Hybridity and Indigeneity in Malaya, 1900-70, David Henley (Leiden University, Netherlands)10. History in and of a Penal Colony in the Bay of Bengal: Two Convict Mazars in the Andaman Islands, Clare Anderson (Leicester University, UK)11. Looking Back on the Bay of Bengal: An African Isolate Reoriented, Michael Laffan (Princeton University, USA)Select BiblopgraphyIndex

Ambitious and exhilarating, this collection weaves together the people, places, and temporalities of the Bay of Bengal (and beyond). The essays look back to the longer arcs of religion and migration and forward to colonial categorizations and postcolonial exclusions. Like resonant intellectual soundings, the essays offer multi-layered and multi-scalar histories that illuminate the complexities of the present. Bustling with memorable characters, and bobbing with “dhows, steamers and lifeboats”, the collection is a model of global history.