Philipp Zehmisch

Frank Heidemann

The authors of this book offer more than one approach to history. The entanglement of social groups, time and space is obvious. It is our common task to reflect on the shades and modes of history of a remote archipelago. A theory of history appears to work in local and academic dimensions of reflection of the past. But this book is both about history and about histories. It brings together the works and thoughts of scholars from different academic backgrounds, and the results of empirical work on the Andamans that will manifest further in future perceptions of history.

Time, Space and Community in the Andaman Islands

Manifestations of History

Ursula Münster

Jens Zickgraf

Claudia Lang

Der Band ehrt die Forschung und Lehre des Ethnologen Frank Heidemann mit Aufsatzen in deutscher und englischer Sprache. DIe Beitrage seiner SchulerInnen, FreundInnen und WegbegleiterInnen reprasentieren sowohl Frank Heidemanns regionalen Schwerpunkt in Sudasien als auch sein breites Forschungsinteresse an Politik- und Medienethnologie, Poststrukturalismus, Postkolonialen Studien, ethnographischem Film und an der Anthropologie der Sinne. DIe Essays zur sozialen Asthetik und Atmosphare vereinen internationale Expertise zu einem hochaktuellen Forschungsfeld, das von Frank Heidemann in der deutschen Ethnologie vertreten wird.

Beiträge aus der Ethnologie

Soziale Ästhetik, Atmosphäre, Medialität

Often called ‘Mini-India’, the Andaman Islands have been a crucial site of encounter between different regimes, subjects, castes, creeds, languages, and ethnicities. Since 1858, subaltern convicts, refugees, repatriates, and labourers from South and Southeast Asia have moved to the islands, condemned to, or in search of a new life. While some migrants have achieved social mobility, others have remained disenfranchised and marginalized. This ethnographic study of the Andaman settler society analyses various shades of inequality that arise from migrant communities’ material and representational access to the state. The author employs the concept of subalternity to investigate political negotiations of island history, collective identity, ecological sustainability, and resource access. Interpreting characteristic views, practices, and voices of subaltern interlocutors, the author untangles their collective agency and consciousness in migration, settlement, and place-making processes. Further, the book highlights particular subaltern strategies in order to achieve autonomy and peaceful cohabitation through movement, cultural and social appropriation, and multi-layered methods of resistance.

Philipp Zehmisch

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