Asian Borderlands: Cross-Border Exchange and Extraction in Modern History

Among the topics we will address are cross-border mobility/migration, extraction and transboundary environmental challenges and conflicts, issues of (layered) sovereignty and claims of subaltern groups vis-à-vis state authorities, citizenship, political economy, the workings of transnational social and religious ties and loyalties, colonialism and postcoloniality, the integration of various Asian regions into the global economy, etc.

 

Day 1. Monday: September 2

9:00-9:10 Welcome and Introduction, Moritz von Brescius (Bern)

9:10-10:45 Keynote Lecture, Andrew Sartori (NYU)

Moderator: Stefan Leins (Bern)

10:45-11:00 Coffee Break

11:00-12:30 Panel I: Trade and Extraction in Northeast India

Arupjoti Saikia (Guwahati): Trading Nature at Empire's Edge: Marwari Merchants in Colonial Northeast India [c. 1820s-1920]

Moritz von Brescius (Bern): Never Within Borders: Assam Rubber Extraction and and the Quest for Sovereignty

Commentary: Debjani Bhattacharyya (Zurich)
12:30-14:00: Lunch at La Vita, Neubrückstrasse 70, 3012 Bern

Day I, Monday: September 2, continued

14:00-15:30 Panel II: Commodities and (Post-) Imperial Ambitions

David Bell (Berlin): A dangerous monopoly?: German merchants in the export of Bengal hides and leathers until the First World War, 1870-1914

Erika Rappaport (UC, Santa Barbara): All that Glitters...is Gold: Mining, Decolonization, and the Culture of Public Relations in Ghana during the 1950s and 1960s

Commentary: Ping-hsiu Alice Lin (Harvard)

15:30-15:45 Coffee Break

15:45-17:00 Panel III: Asian Environments and the more-than-human World

Corey Ross (Basel): Aquatic Émigrés: Fish Transfers and Inland Waters in colonial Asia

David Arnold (Warwick): The Migrant Cow: India and the Bovine Diaspora

Commentary: Christian Rohr (Bern)

17:10 Mid-Conference Commentary Roland Wenzlhuemer (LMU)

18:30 Conference Dinner for all participants listed in the program at the Schweizerhof Sky Terrace

Day 2. Tuesday, September 3

9:00-10:30 Panel IV: Anti-Imperial Mobilities

Zaib un Nisa Aziz (Tampa Florida): Red Star Over Asia: China, India and the Revolutionary Promise of the National Movements

Harald Fischer-Tiné (ETH): Border-Crossing as a Political Strategy: Indian Globetrotting and ‘Touristic Anti-Imperialism’ in the Late Colonial Era (c. 1910-1940)

Commentary: Brigitte Studer (Bern)

10:30-10:45 Coffee Break

10:45-12:30 Panel V: The Political Economy of Empire

Jamie Martin (Harvard): The Outbreak of the First World War and the Paralysis of the World Economy: The View from Malaya

Valeria Giacomin (Bocconi): Southeast Asian Plantation Economy in the Late Colonial Era: Investment Overview and Environmental Impact (1890-1930)

Sanghamitra Misra (Delhi): The Long Conquest: Imperial Violence and Anthropological Knowledge in the Garo Hills

Commentary: Christof Dejung (Bern)
12:30-14:00 Lunch at Taj Restaurant, Länggassstrasse 43, 3012 Bern

Day 2. Tuesday, September 3, continued

14:00-15:30 Panel VI: Cross-Border Performances and Extractive Practices

Jayeeta Sharma (Toronto): Mountains of Empire: Extractive Pasts and Decolonizing Futures

Aniket De (San Diego): Chronicles of the Toiling Shiva: Labor, Performance, and the Making of the Bengal Borderland

Commentary: Tom Simpson (Warwick)

15:30-15:45 Coffee Break

15:45-17:00 Panel VII: Borderland Worlds

Bodhisattva Kar (Cape Town): Can the Headhunters Vote?: Deficit, Domicile and Other Questions of Representation in the Hills of Assam, 1919–35

Willem van Schendel (Amsterdam): A Hole in the British Empire: The “Free Hills” between India and Burma Commentary: Kapil Raj (EHESS)

17:00 Concluding Roundtable and Discussion Jayita Sarkar (Glasgow)
Ben Hopkins (Washington DC)

18:30 End of Conference Dinner at Restaurant Kirchenfeld, Thunstrasse 5, 3005 Bern