We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
‘Inhabitants of the universe’: global families, kinship networks, and the formation of the early modern colonial state in Asia.
- Authors
Veevers, David
- Abstract
New research on the early modern colonial state in Asia has emphasized the agency of actors and their networks in a process of state formation, while the rise of global history has similarly highlighted the importance of global connections in forming sites of empire. This article seeks to contribute to this growing literature. It does so by revealing that the families of English East India Company servants, following their counterparts in other European East India companies in Asia, underwent a global transition in which they established Asian-wide networks of kinship, transcending the local and regional spaces in which they had previously operated. Through their increasing ability to operate across the social, cultural, economic, and political borders of Asia, Company kinship networks facilitated the formation of a politically amorphous colonial state. Furthermore, while previous scholarship has confined colonial state formation to the later eighteenth century, this article challenges the historiography by relocating this process to the later seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
- Subjects
ASIA; COLONIES; WORLD history; EAST India Co.; STATE formation -- History; HOUSEHOLD employees; EIGHTEENTH century; HISTORY
- Publication
Journal of Global History, 2015, Vol 10, Issue 1, p99
- ISSN
1740-0228
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1017/S1740022814000370