Repository logo
 

Connection: The port of Colombo, the geographical "Circuit," and the visual politics of new imperialism, ca. 1880-1914

Simple item page
cam.issuedOnline2017-04-18
dc.contributor.authorSivasundaram, S
dc.date.accessioned2016-07-15T10:56:37Z
dc.date.available2016-07-15T10:56:37Z
dc.date.issued2017
dc.description.abstract<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Connections, circuits, webs, and networks: these are concepts that are overused in today's world histories. Working from a commitment to reflexive historicization, this paper points to one moment in the consolidation of these terms: the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century visual politics of “new imperialism.” Utilizing photographs, engravings, postcards, letters, and colonial documents, the paper argues that connection was mesmerizing and can still mesmerize the historian. Being connected became possible because of visual and infrastructural projects that allowed the production and consumption of lines that literally cut sea and land. At a time of high empire, and in accordance with the dictates of Imperial Geography, particular locales or “nodes” were thus positioned in the “global.” To mount this critique of our language, the paper focuses on the infrastructural development of the port of Colombo, alongside the thinking of Halford Mackinder, the building of breakwaters in Colombo, the arrival of mass tourism, projections of capitalist improvement for the business of transshipment, and the use of the port by Indian laborers on their way to Ceylon's highland plantations. By attending to the place where connection is wrought, its material workings, and its traces in the visual, intellectual, and capitalist archive, it is argued that connectivity's forgettings and displacements come more forcefully into view. If connection had an evacuating character and could be so imperialist, what of its status in our writings?</jats:p>
dc.description.versionThis is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Cambridge University Press via https://doi.org/10.1017/S001041751700007X
dc.identifier.doi10.17863/CAM.686
dc.identifier.eissn1475-2999
dc.identifier.issn0010-4175
dc.identifier.urihttps://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/256751
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherCambridge University Press (CUP)
dc.publisher.urlhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s001041751700007x
dc.subjectColombo
dc.subjectSri Lanka
dc.subjectports
dc.subjectphotographs
dc.subjectengineering
dc.subjectconnected histories
dc.subjecthistory of globalization
dc.subjectWorld History
dc.subjectImperial Geography
dc.subjectBritish Empire
dc.subjectHalford Mackinder
dc.subjectindentured labor
dc.subjecttourism
dc.subjectpostal systems
dc.titleConnection: The port of Colombo, the geographical "Circuit," and the visual politics of new imperialism, ca. 1880-1914
dc.typeArticle
dcterms.dateAccepted2016-06-08
prism.endingPage384
prism.publicationDate2016
prism.publicationNameComparative Studies in Society and History
prism.startingPage346
prism.volume59
rioxxterms.licenseref.startdate2016-04-01
rioxxterms.licenseref.urihttp://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved
rioxxterms.typeJournal Article/Review
rioxxterms.versionAM
rioxxterms.versionofrecord10.1017/S001041751700007X

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Sivasundaram-2016-Comparative_Studies_in_Society_and_History-AM.pdf
Size:
441.82 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Accepted version
Licence
http://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
license.txt
Size:
3.8 KB
Format:
Item-specific license agreed upon to submission
Download

Collections

Scholarly Works - History
Symplectic mapped items for data match