Dialogue
Seema Alavi (Professor of History, Ashoka University, India); Bettina Ng'weno (Associate Professor, University of California, Davis); Engseng Ho (Professor of Anthropology and History, Duke University, USA)
Moderator: George Jose (Visiting Associate Professor of Anthropology, NYUAD)
Oceans, estuaries and the littoral play a crucial role in determining historical relations, cultural kinships, cosmopolitan traffic and ideas of sovereignty. This dialogue with thinkers focused on the Indian Ocean dives into the sentient realm of water-led social orders and regional historiographies, querying current arrangements of power, toxic ecologies and capitalist logistics. Brimming with fresh cartographic possibilities, the waters between the Sharjah Creek, the Arabian Gulf and the Swahili Seas provide us with novel ways of thinking about memory and linguistic and material cultures. Engseng Ho, Seema Alavi and Bettina Ng'weno explore new lines of research and expression in the oceanic imaginary and decode what it means ‘to carry’ legacies of mobility today.