Article ID: CBB001422575

Food Traditions and Landscape Histories of the Indian Ocean World: Theoretical and Methodological Reflections (2015)

unapi

Rangan, Haripriya (Author)
Alpers, Edward A. (Author)
Denham, Tim (Author)
Kull, Christian A. (Author)
Carney, Judith (Author)


Environment and History
Volume: 21, no. 1
Issue: 1
Pages: 135-157


Publication Date: 2015
Edition Details: Article in a special issue: “Transoceanic Exchanges”
Language: English

Environmental histories of plant exchanges have largely centred on their economic importance in international trade and on their ecological and social impacts in the places where they were introduced. Yet few studies have attempted to examine how plants brought from elsewhere become incorporated over time into the regional cultures of material life and agricultural landscapes. This essay considers the theoretical and methodological problems in investigating the environmental history, diversity and distribution of food plants transferred across the Indian Ocean over several millennia. It brings together concepts of creolisation, syncretism, and hybridity to outline a framework for understanding how biotic exchanges and diffusions have been translated into regional landscape histories through food traditions, ritual practices and articulation of cultural identity. We use the banana plant - which underwent early domestication across New Guinea, South-east Asia and peninsular India and reached East Africa roughly two thousand years ago - as an example for illustrating the diverse patterns of incorporation into the cultural symbolism, material life and regional landscapes of the Indian Ocean World. We show that this cultural evolutionary approach allows new historical insights to emerge and enriches ongoing debates regarding the antiquity of the plant's diffusion from South-east Asia to Africa.

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Authors & Contributors
Segenni, Simonetta
Manacorda, Daniele
Johnson, Sarah
Tuteri, Rosanna
Capogrossi Colognesi, Lucia
Potts, Daniel T.
Concepts
Agriculture
Environmental history
Food and foods
Landscape; landscapes
Roman Empire
Agricultural technology
Time Periods
Ancient
Prehistory
19th century
20th century
Bronze age
Iron age
Places
Europe
Indian Ocean
Pakistan
Egypt
Rome (Italy)
Atlantic world
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