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Wed 12 April
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Thu 13 April
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Fri 14 April
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Sat 15 April
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Friday 14 April 2023 11.00 - 13.00
O-10 WOR01/EMPe Exploiting the Empire of Others: Session 5 – Exploiting the Empire of Others, 1415-1918 Global Insights into Entrepreneurial Cultures and Empire Building
E43
Network: Global History Chair: Catia Antunes
Organizer: Catia Antunes Discussant: Anne Gerritsen
Remi Dewiere : New Currency, get Richer? Failed Entrepreneur and Imaginary Currencies in 19th Century Central Sahel
In the first half of the 19th century, the newly installed ruler of Borno, Muhammad al-Kanemi, had to face the economic and political decline of his region, after the establishment of the powerful Caliphate of Sokoto, in present day Nigeria. Looking for innovative ways to reinforce his position in transsahelian ... (Show more)
In the first half of the 19th century, the newly installed ruler of Borno, Muhammad al-Kanemi, had to face the economic and political decline of his region, after the establishment of the powerful Caliphate of Sokoto, in present day Nigeria. Looking for innovative ways to reinforce his position in transsahelian and transsaharan economies, he multiplicated diplomatic initiatives to acquire a coining machine from the British authorities. According to a Borno ambassador in Alexandria, in 1836, he was assisted by a French renegade, who promised to assist him in this task, selling his expertise in coining in the Bornoan capital. If this ‘entrepreneur’ from Marseille is yet unknwon, the evidence released by the Borno ambassies to the British authorities reveal an elaborated project, that allow us to explore the relations between diplomacy, politics and economy in pre-colonial Islamic Africa, and to challenge the concepts of modernization and entrepreneurship in global history, from an Afro-centered perspective. (Show less)

Lisa Hellman : Exploiting Exile: Foreign Brokers in the Russian Borderlands
This paper traces prisoners and exiles in Russian-Chinese borderlands. Along the borders of the expanding Russian and Qing empires were a number of nomad and semi-nomadic polities and dependent states, including those of the Bashkirs, Ostiaks, Volga Kalmyks, Kazaks, Mongols and Dzungars. In these polities, a space was created during ... (Show more)
This paper traces prisoners and exiles in Russian-Chinese borderlands. Along the borders of the expanding Russian and Qing empires were a number of nomad and semi-nomadic polities and dependent states, including those of the Bashkirs, Ostiaks, Volga Kalmyks, Kazaks, Mongols and Dzungars. In these polities, a space was created during volatile shifts in the late 17th and early 18th century that made it possible for foreign entrepreneurs not only to enter the Russian, Qing and Dzungar empires, but to make use of the expansions, networks and trade endeavours of these empires for their own purposes.
In this study, a sample of actors from Greece, Romania, Sweden, Germany and the Ottoman Empire are followed in detail, using a multi-lingual source material and global micro-historical method. Taken together, they can illuminate how the aims and strategies of three empires could be exploited by foreign individuals to their own ends. Their entrepreneurial activities range from that of political emissary to religious missions and geographic exploration. What they have in common, however, is the way they combined such activities with commercial schemes.
The concept of imperial exploitation is double ended here: on the one hand, it includes the exploitation of the imperial resources by foreigners, and a key part of those resources include unfree labour, forcibly displaced people, and the use of local infrastructure. On the other hand, most of that usage was not only carried out in open view – it was condoned or even initiated by the empires themselves. This paper will thus explore the entrepreneurial activities of foreigners within the Russian, Qing and Dzungar empire in the late 17th and early 18th century, and consider who exploited whom. (Show less)

Takahiro Yamamoto : Japanese Entrepreneurship in German Micronesia, 1899-1914
This paper examines the Japanese entrepreneurs in German-controlled Micronesia in the beginning of the twentieth century to better understand the entanglement among the Japanese commerce in what they termed the south seas (Nan’y?), German colonial rule, and the local islanders’ societies, with a focus on Truk (today’s Chuuk, part of ... (Show more)
This paper examines the Japanese entrepreneurs in German-controlled Micronesia in the beginning of the twentieth century to better understand the entanglement among the Japanese commerce in what they termed the south seas (Nan’y?), German colonial rule, and the local islanders’ societies, with a focus on Truk (today’s Chuuk, part of Micronesia). Whereas recent scholarship on the Japanese history of Nan’y? stresses the role of individual merchants and their business acumen, often in connection with colonial projects in Taiwan and migratory circulation of Okinawans, their relationship with German colonial authorities remain under-explored. This paper seeks to fill in this gap by examining German colonial archives, Japanese company papers, and where available, private papers of Japanese settler-traders. While most Japanese sources before 1914—when Japan’s imperial navy occupied German Micronesia—describe their activities simply as copra export, the German sources accuse the Japanese settler-traders of smuggling in firearms and dynamite, damaging German copra trade, local security situations, and environmental conditions of the surrounding waters. In 1901 German animosity towards the Japanese trade led to the expulsion of all but one Japanese settlers from Truk, one of the key trading sites, but the Japanese were allowed back in in 1907 and the Germans thereafter failed to completely suppress what looks like the Japanese piggybacking on their empire. The paper studies why the German colonial government failed to maintain the ban on Japanese trade in Truk and what kind of implications we can draw from the multi-faceted relationships in Micronesian islands up to the outbreak of the First World War. (Show less)



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