Cargoes in Motion

Burkhard Schnepel is a professor of social anthropology at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg. From 2013 to 2020, he was head of the Connectivity in Motion: Port Cities of the Indian Ocean fellows group at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle. He is the author of The King's Three Bodies: Essays on Kingship and Ritual and a coeditor of Travelling Pasts: The Politics of Cultural Heritage in the Indian Ocean World.Julia Verne is a professor of cultural geography at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, where she leads a research group on mobility, materiality, and maritimity, with a focus on the western Indian Ocean. Her publications include Living Translocality: Space, Culture, and Economy in Contemporary Swahili Trade and several articles discussing the Indian Ocean as a relational space.

• Preface (JULIA VERNE)AcknowledgmentsIntroduction. Cargoes in the Indian Ocean World: A Thematic and Methodological Introduction (BURKHARD SCHNEPEL)PART I: CARGOES IN THE MAKINGChapter 1. Brilliant Cargoes: Pearls, Shell, and Exchanges of Marine Products in the Indian Ocean (PEDRO MACHADO)Chapter 2. The History of Southern Red Sea Salt in Indian Ocean Trade STEVEN SERELSChapter 3. The Flow of Bohea: The Tea Trade in the Indian Ocean World (Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries) (KUNBING XIAO)Chapter 4. The Journey of Cloves: Historical Trajectories and New Dynamics of Organic Labeling on Zanzibar (RUPERT NEUHÖFER AND HANNAH PILGRIM)PART II: ON BOARDChapter 5. Giraffes and Elephants: Circulation of Exotic Animals in the Longue Durée History of the Indian Ocean World (TANSEN SEN)Chapter 6. Cattle on the Hoof: The Mozambique Channel Provisioning Trade in the Nineteenth Century (EDWARD A. ALPERS)Chapter 7. Paper Cargoes, Mobile Histories: A View from the Twentieth-Century Dhow (FAHAD AHMAD BISHARA)Chapter 8. An Enduring Measure of Twelve Thousand Cowries: The Materialities and Life Histories of a Well-traveled Marine Product (EVA-MARIA KNOLL)PART III: CARGOES IN USEChapter 9. Arab Perfumes and the Indian Ocean Trade in Animal-Derived Aromatics: The Case of Civet (HANNE SCHÖNIG)Chapter 10. When Gecko Tails Travel from Island Forests to Laboratories: From Materiality to Information in Scientific Cargo (LISA JENNYKRIEG)Chapter 11. From Cargo to “Inalienable Possessions”: Beads and Beadwork in Penang (MAREIKE PAMPUS)Chapter 12. The Elephant with the Seven Tusks: Maritime Commodities in East Indonesian Clan Houses and Marriage Cycles (KARL-HEINZ KOHL)BibliographyContributorsIndex

This volume addresses an important and thus far somewhat understudied topical focus in the field of Indian Ocean studies: the material things that actually traversed the ocean as shipments facilitating and realizing trade and creating various kinds of (often long-sustained) meaningful interaction on different littorals. The result is a unique and stimulating selection of carefully worked case studies, which together make a significant contribution to the growing field of Indian Ocean studies. Burkhard Schnepel and Julia Verne’s Cargoes in Motion is a wide-ranging, thought-provoking, and timely addition to Indian Ocean studies. Contributors to the volume employ diverse approaches to material exchanges, including new lines of inquiry and the critical reconsideration of well-known objects of exchange. An innovative collection that makes important conceptual and empirical contributions to multiple fields, Cargoes in Motion deserves a wide audience.” Cargoes in Motion is a timely and valuable book to researchers in the field of Indian Ocean studies. The in-depth engagement with which authors handle their respective topics makes this book invaluable for experts, and its clarity and neat outline invites non-specialists as well. What stands out is the interdisciplinary focus on cargo, which makes this a great read for researchers from varied disciplines. - Jacky Kosgei (African Studies Quarterly)