Integrated Histories of the Andaman Islands

Lead Research Organisation: University of Leicester
Department Name: Sch of Historical Studies

Abstract

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
 
Description This project undertook research in archives and the field, taking historical, sociological and anthropological perspectives on islands, empires, indigeneity and settler societies. It centred on the Andaman Islands (1790-present), underpinned by the concepts of landscape and space, to open up a series of interrelated discussions on manifestations of history in this and for related postcolonial and island contexts. Our methodology, focus and objective lie at the heart of the scientific impact, across a range of themes, general and particular, and straddling the colonial and postcolonial periods: imperial expansion, colonialism and decolonization; governmentality, rebellion, nationalism and war; Independence and Partition; indigenous confinement, and settlement and development schemes; community formation; memorialisation and commemoration; and, indigenous and settler centred perspectives on history and tribal welfare. The use of the analytical tropes of landscape and space elaborates a running thematic; that of the making of the Andamans as a distinctive social space on the margins of the Indian nation state. The focus on landscape understood through its broad socio-spatial dialectics is the organizing theme of our scholarly impact; it engages with the criticality of the 'land question' in an island context, where territorial limits raise an altogether different set of questions about 'borderlands'. We draw attention to the ways in which land and landscape both as material reality and as representational discourse constitute a critical point of reference in developing an understanding of the culture, history and society of the Andamans. We add as investigators on one of the first ESRC international pilot projects that we regard our work as a model of how researchers from different disciplines, different career stages, and the Global North and South, can work in genuine and equal collaboration to produce work of international scientific value.
A further point of interest is that following analysis of penal colony statistics, it has been discovered that the Andaman islands received more convicts than any other British penal colony, including in the Australian continent.
Exploitation Route Potential Future Impacts
Pandya's work for the PTG expert committee, and for ANTRI and AAJVS, will continue in the immediate future.
Sectors Other
URL http://www.convictvoyages.org
 
Description This project has innovated the mainstreaming of Andaman studies by engaging with a range of stakeholders. Its findings on the continuities between colonial and post-colonial state policies have drawn attention to the ambivalence of contemporary policy directions. This is important because of a growing need for more informed public debate on issues of development. The research has drawn the attention of the Andaman administration to the need to address tribal issues from a more holistic point of view and in conjunction with their contemporary political economic structures and cultural formations. Its findings on settler-tribal relations for instance have been recently used as critical resources to create a platform for conflict resolution in Tirrur in S. Andaman. Further, the project has generated interest in the historical resources available in the islands. Particular mention may be made here that at the request of the archivist at the Secretariat Pandya donated books and published articles to the Secretariat Library, and Anderson contributed visual and academic resources to the Cellular Jail and Local Born Association. The investigators have had widespread discussions with islanders, curators, teachers and local historians on ways in which archival material can be used for writing social histories of the islands' settler communities. The project offered new ways of generating interest in both the islands' local history and its links with broader national and global historical forces. One stellar example is that in the course of his research Pandya convinced the Andaman administration of the need to develop a systematic oral history archive for the islands' indigenous communities, eg Onge and Jarawa. This systematic compilation of their views would become the basis of future policy making. The first result of this initiative was submitted as a report to the Andaman Administration in Sept. 2013.
First Year Of Impact 2009
Sector Other
Impact Types Cultural,Societal
 
Description Convicts, Creolisation and Cosmopolitanism in the British and French Empires
Amount £371,541 (GBP)
Funding ID RPG-2021-094 
Organisation The Leverhulme Trust 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 05/2021 
End 04/2025