A Biography of the Indian Ocean

Imagined, Embodied and Experiential Cartographies
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-041-19847-5
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 180 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Transdisciplinary Souths

This book, with a focus on the East African coast and especially on the Kenyan coast, puts into conversation cross-generic texts – the historical novel, the Indian Ocean novel, oral history, oral testimony, and oral poetry – in two main languages – English and Kiswahili – with the aim of challenging, expanding and complementing the existing knowledge archive on Indian Ocean histories and its ideations on the Kenyan coast. It especially pays attention to the local forms of expression that articulate the Indian Ocean world from personal, local and intimate perspectives. The intimate, personal and local maps of the sea that emerge from this set of texts are derived from local articulations of the sea, informed by musings by seafarers who include divers, sailors, fishers and beach operators.

The volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of literary and cultural studies, African studies and Indian Ocean studies.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kosgei, Jacky

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Nicht-Westliche Philosophie Afrikanische Philosophie
• Naturwissenschaften Biowissenschaften Biowissenschaften Biowissenschaften, Biologie: Sachbuch, Naturführer
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literarische Stoffe, Motive und Themen
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Historische & Regionale Volkskunde
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturen sonstiger Sprachräume Afrikanische Literaturen

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction - Refiguring Indian Ocean Epistemological Cartographies

Critical Ocean Studies

Oral Sources

Chapter Outlines

Chapter 1 - Historical Sources and the Writing of Fiction in Valerie Cuthbert's The Great Siege of Fort Jesus

History and Fiction; History as Narrative

Portuguese Historiography of the Indian Ocean World

Portuguese-Oriented Histories of the Kenyan Coast: Cuthbert's Sources

Reproduction of the Colonial Archive: Imported biases in Cuthbert's novel

Chapter 2 - Subverting Eurocentric Histories of the Swahili Coast in the 19th Century

Distanced Affinities and Proximate Tensions: Oral and biographical reflections on Rebmann

Humanizing the Demonized: Subverting Eurocentric histories of the Swahili coast

Chapter 3 - Re-figuring the Colonial Archive: Oral Historiographies of Fort Jesus in Mombasa

Fort Jesus, a Portuguese Fortress: The official oral history of Fort Jesus

Ngomeni, not Fort Jesus: A Digo home, not a Portuguese fortress

Of Disruptions and Erasures: A comparative reading of the oral histories of Fort Jesus

Chapter 4 - From Surface to Depth: Material and Multidimensional Perspectives of the Indian Ocean

Lateral Connections and the Economic Dimension of the Sea

Underwater Perspectives and the Spiritual Dimension of the Sea

Chapter 5 - A Dead and Dying Sea: The Ecological Dimension of the Indian Ocean on the Kenyan Coast

Summoning Local Art Forms: Ecological functions of Swahili oral poetry

Generation Eyewitnesses: Fishers' articulation of a dead and dying sea

Chapter 6 - A Biography of the Indian Ocean: Tracing alternative sea maps in Yvonne Owuor's The Dragonfly Sea

Sensuous Maps of the Indian Ocean

Owuor's Ecocritical and Political Project in The Dragonfly

Conclusion - Notes on Expaning Epistemic Territories

References

Über Autor(innen)

Jacky Kosgei is Junior Professor of Global Epistemologies at University of Tübingen in Germany. Her research interests in Indian Ocean Studies are located at the intersection of literary, cultural, historical and anthropological studies. She is the co-editor of the recently published Proximity as Method (2024).