International Start-Up Workshop “Ports and Trans-Ports: Evolution and Revolution(s) in the Indian Ocean World”

The Research Centre Indian Ocean (RIO) at GUtech will be holding a start-up workshop together with Halle University, Germany, (ZIRS), and in cooperation with CIVIS, Sindh University, Pakistan, with ICOMOS and with Al Roya, Muscat, Oman from 4 to 6 March 2019 at the premises of GUtech, Halban, Muscat based on invited participation only.

The workshop focuses on the agents (ports) and means (trans-ports) of mobility across the Indian Ocean world. It is thus a contribution to the emergent field of mobility studies, with an empirical focus on the Indian Ocean world and on the maritime exchanges that have been going on there for more than five thousand years now. While doing so, three analytical, almost amphibious dimensions come into view: 1) the relation of land and sea trade and socio-cultural exchanges as seen from the land; 2) Indian Ocean exchanges of humans, animals as well as material and immaterial goods as seen from the sea; and 3) the infrastructure and inner life of maritime hubs. These three dimensions will be discussed in several panels. In the fourth panel special weight will be given to the ethnicity and networks also emphazising the historic connection between China and Europe along with the enormous Corpus ´Portugal in the Sea of Oman´, with the first 17 volumes of transcribed and translated manuscripts fresh from the press and edited by Abdulrahman al Salmi and Michael Jansen in Oman.

Venue: Research Centre Indian Ocean (RIO), German University of Technology in Oman, Halban, Muscat, Oman