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ID:
130577
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Publication |
2014.
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Summary/Abstract |
This paper discusses the foundational history of a major European mercantile house in colonial South East Asia in the context of commercial developments that had both a regional and global reach. In so doing, it seeks to relate a local and historically particular event to a broader world pattern defined by three rapidly evolving commodity chains, based respectively on the production, distribution and consumption of cotton goods, coffee and opium. In this context, the paper argues that the hard-won commercial success of the firm in question resulted from a significant degree of withdrawal from the bilateral ties between colony and metropolis inherent in the cotton and coffee commodity chains. In their place, the firm had recourse to several varieties of the inter-Asian trade, of which the opium commodity chain constituted the key dimension.
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2 |
ID:
192861
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Summary/Abstract |
This article aims to supplement existing economic analyses of the Marwari mercantile network by exploring how the network is both grounded spatially and reproduced culturally in Manipur. It discusses some of the economic and socio-cultural practices adopted by the Marwari merchants in Manipur including their business activities, marriage patterns and temple construction. In so doing, it highlights the nature of relationships between these practices and how they are connected to their mercantile network at large. The article also illustrates how merchant communities such as the Marwaris carve out their own space through cultural processes of place-making in a contested place like Manipur. Elucidating how the Marwari mercantile network gets reproduced culturally, it reveals the ways in which networks of capital relate to distinct spatial configurations – in this case, borderland. In turn, the above process also delineates how the idea of belonging for the Marwari merchants is emplaced and shaped at the same time by their mercantile network. Based primarily on interviews, observation and some documents, the materials used in this article stem mainly from Imphal and some from Churachandpur.
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