The Indian Ocean World Podcast

This week, Dr. Nienke Boer (Sydney) joins our producer, Sam Gleave Riemann, to discuss her 2023 book, The Briny South: Displacement and Sentiment in the Indian Ocean World (Duke UP). They discuss the connections between post-colonial and ocean studies, feelings and their representations, and South Africa and the broader Indian Ocean World.

Dr. Boer has been Lecturer in World Literatures at the University of Sydney since early 2023....

In this episode, Dr. Philip Gooding (IOWC, McGill) is joined by Dr. John Lee (Durham) to discuss two recent article-length publications, his 2022 paper, “Sylvan Anxieties and the Making of Landscapes in Early Modern Korea,” and his chapter, “A State of Ranches and Forests: The Environmental Legacy of the Mongol Empire in Korea,” from the 2023 volume, Forces of Nature: New Perspectives on Korean Environments. As these titles suggest...

Prof. Krishnendu Ray (NYU) joins Dr. Philip Gooding (IOWC, McGill) to discuss a recent special volume of Verge: Studies in Global Asias, entitled "Culinary Cultures on the Move," which Prof. Ray co-edited, as well as his contribution to that volume, entitled "Food in the Indian Ocean World: Mobility, Materiality, and Cultural Exchange," which he coauthored with Dr. Kathleen Burke (NYU Shanghai) and Stephanie Jolly. This wide-rangin...

For the first episode of our new season, Dr. Philip Gooding (IOWC, McGill) welcomes Prof. Arunima Datta (University of North Texas) to discuss her article, "Race, Anxiety and Shopping in the Australian Outback: Indian Hawkers and Victoria's 1884 Smallpox Outbreak," as well as her newly-published second monograph, Waiting on Empire: A History of Indian Travelling Ayahs in Britain (Oxford UP, 2023). Their conversation covers many of ...

This week, Dr. Philip Gooding (IOWC, McGill) interviews Prof. Chris Gratien (UVA) about his highly-awarded new book, The Unsettled Plain: An Environmental History of the Late Ottoman Frontier (Stanford UP, 2022). They talk about trends and methods in environmental history, the specific histories of Çukurova that the book explores, and the late Ottoman frontier as a frontier in turn of the vast Indian Ocean World.

Prof. Gratien is A...

Prof. Jeremy Prestholdt (UC San Diego) joins Dr. Philip Gooding (IOWC, McGill) to go behind-the-scenes on the new journal of Indian Ocean Studies, Monsoon, of which Prof. Prestholdt is founding co-editor. They also discuss some of Prof. Prestholdt's recent and upcoming research on the connections of the Western Indian Ocean and Indian Ocean Africa with global economic and cultural systems.

Prof. Prestholdt completed his PhD at Nort...

Our producer, Sam Gleave Riemann (IOWC, McGill), is joined by Julien Greschner to discuss his 2023 Masters thesis, "Solutions to Poverty According to Those Who Live It: Case Study in Manyatta B Informal Settlement, Kisumu, Kenya," covering definitions of poverty, community perceptions, and research processes in the global South under pandemic conditions.

Julien Greschner recently completed his MA in Geography at McGill University u...

Dr. Philip Gooding (IOWC, McGill) is joined by Dr. James Parker (Arizona State University) to discuss his 2022 paper, "Ecologies of Development: Ecophilosophies and Indigenous Action on the Tana River," published in History in Africa. The conversation covers colonial capitalism and its post-colonial hangovers along the river, the complex Indigenous responses to these forces, and the agency of the Tana itself in shaping these storie...

Dr. Philip Gooding (IOWC, McGill) welcomes Dr. James Beattie (Victoria University of Wellington) for a wide-ranging discussion of Dr. Beattie's work: the 2022 multi-author volume Migrant Ecologies: Environmental History of the Pacific World, which he co-edited with Ryan Tucker Jones and Edward Dallam Melillo; his chapter in that book, "Chinese Resource Frontiers, Environmental Change, and Entrepreneurship in the South Pacific, 1790...

Producer Sam Gleave Riemann (IOWC, McGill) is joined by Dr. Sophie Chao (Sydney) to discuss the complex ecologies of West Papuan oil palm plantations. They consider multispecies kinships, capitalist aggression, and the various critters who assist and oppose the oil palm's presence in Papua.

Dr. Chao completed her PhD at the Macquarie University in 2019 and is now a DECRA Fellow and Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Sydn...

In the first episode of our fall season, Dr. Philip Gooding (IOWC, McGill) is in conversation with Prof. Tamara Fernando (Stony Brook). Taking Prof. Fernando's 2023 paper, "Mapping Oysters and Making Oceans in the Northern Indian Ocean, 1880–1906," as their starting point, they discuss her research into the 19th-century pearl trade around the Indian Ocean World, which spans several historical subfields—animal and labour histories; ...

On this special episode between seasons, Dr. Philip Gooding (IOWC, McGill) checks in with four of the IOWC undergraduate Research Assistants. Join us as we honour their hard work and learn more about the ongoing research projects at the Indian Ocean World Centre.

Wukai Jiang majors in Geography and minors in History at McGill University.

Nadia Fekih has just completed her second year at McGill, majoring in Environmental Studies and...

Our usual host, Dr. Philip Gooding (IOWC, McGill), is our interviewee this week, answering a few questions about his first monograph, On the Frontiers of the Indian Ocean World: A History of Lake Tanganyika, c.1830-1890 (Cambridge UP, 2022) with our producer, Sam Gleave Riemann. As well as introducing the book to listeners who haven't had a chance to read it yet, they answer a handful of questions that Philip didn't have time to ad...

This week, our host Dr. Philip Gooding (IOWC, McGill) joins in conversation with Dr. Alice Nyawira Karuri (Strathmore) to discuss her recent chapter "Adaptation of Small-Scale Tea and Coffee Farmers in Kenya to Climate Change," published in the African Handbook of Climate Change Adaptation (Springer, 2021). Their conversation covers Dr. Karuri's economic research into the challenges facing Kenyan tea and coffee farmers in our curre...

Dr. Philip Gooding (IOWC, McGill) is joined this week by Prof. Justin Raycraft (Lethbridge) to discuss his 2021 paper, “Islamic Discourses of Environmental Change on the Swahili Coast of Southern Tanzania.” Their conversation covers not just Prof. Raycraft's fascinating analysis of Islam's role in his respondents' interpretation of a changing environment, but covers in depth the ethnographic process by which he collected his data a...

This week, Prof. Pao-Kuan Wang (Academia Sinica) joins Dr. Philip Gooding (IOWC, McGill) to discuss the Reconstructed East Asian Climate Historical Encoded Series (REACHES) database, a staggering initiative that, under Prof. Wang’s directorship, standardizes and makes available climate data based on historical records spanning Ming and Qing China. Their conversation covers the long history of Prof. Wang’s research in historical cli...

Prof. Kasia Paprocki (LSE) joins Dr. Philip Gooding (IOWC, McGill) to discuss her first monograph, Threatening Dystopias: The Global Politics of Climate Change Adaptation in Bangladesh, which was published by Cornell University Press in 2021. They discuss Prof. Paprocki’s longstanding work with peasant movements in southwest Bangladesh, challenging normative problems in international narratives around climate, development, and sove...

Dr. Philip Gooding (IOWC, McGill) welcomes Prof. Ruth Mostern (Pittsburgh) to discuss her 2021 book, The Yellow River: A Natural and Unnatural History. They consider the river’s central role in Chinese history, moving water, sediment, people, and goods, along with the research and publication processes of environmental history.

Prof. Mostern is Professor in Pitt’s Department of History, where she teaches Chinese and world history a...

Prof. Ruth Morgan (Australian National University) joins Dr. Philip Gooding (IOWC, McGill) to discuss her 2021 article “Health, Hearth and Empire: Climate, Race and Reproduction in British India and Western Australia.” Their conversation covers the nuances of 19th-century British imperial policy in the Indian Ocean World, the shortfalls of contemporary climatic theories of race and health, and the value of gender analysis in climat...