11 Oct. Prasannan Parthasarathi (Boston College), Enze Han (University of Hong Kong)

4:00-5:15 Prasannan Parthasarathi: Agriculture, Environment, and Famine in Tamilnad, 1850-1900 (Link to Readings)

Prasannan Parthasarathi received a PhD in economics from Harvard and is Professor of South Asian History at Boston College. He is the author of The Transition to a Colonial Economy: Weavers, Merchants and Kings in South India, 1720-1800 (Cambridge, 2001), The Spinning World: A Global History of Cotton Textiles (Oxford, 2009), and Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence 1600-1850 (Cambridge, 2011), which received the Jerry Bentley Book Prize of the World History Association and was named a Choice magazine outstanding academic title. He is now working on a study of agriculture and the environment in nineteenth-century South India. His articles have appeared in Past and Present, the Journal of Social History, Modern Asian Studies, and International Labor and Working Class History. He is on the editorial boards of International Labor and Working Class History, The Journal of Social History, The Medieval History Journal, and Textile History, and served on the editorial board of the American Historical Review.

Abstract: This chapter is drawn from a book that traces the development of agriculture in nineteenth- century Tamilnad from the perspectives of political economy and environment. The chapter examines the famines of the late nineteenth century, with some focus on the terrible dearth of 1876-78. It shows that changes in the political economy and in the environment converged to produce unprecedented hunger in the Tamilnad countryside. Political economy tells us that the regime of risk was transformed under British rule and the environment shows us that the decline in the scope of self-provisioning pushed many closer to the margins of subsistence.

5:30 – 6:45 Enze Han:  Asymmetrical Neighbors: Borderland State-Building between China and Southeast Asia (Link to reading)

Dr. Enze Han is an Associate Professor at the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Hong Kong. His research interests include ethnic politics in China, China’s relations with Southeast Asia, and the politics of state formation in the borderland area between China, Myanmar and Thailand. Previously he was Senior Lecturer at the Department of Politics and International Studies at SOAS, University of London. His research has been supported by the Leverhulme Research Fellowship, and British Council/Newton Fund. During 2015-2016, he was a Friends Founders; Circle Member of the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, USA. He is the author of Asymmetrical Neighbours: Borderland State Building between China and Southeast Asia (Oxford University Press, 2019), and Contestation and Adaptation: The Politics of National Identity in China (Oxford University Press, 2013). He has also published numerous articles in WorldDevelopment, The China Quarterly, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Pacific Review,Security Studies, Conflict Management and Peace Science, Chinese Journal of International Politics, among others.

Abstract: Is the process of state building a unilateral, national venture, or is it something more collaborative, taking place in the interstices between adjoining countries? To answer this question, this book takes a comparative look at the state building process along China, Myanmar, and Thailand’s common borderland area. It shows that the variations in state building among these neighboring countries are the result of an interactive process that occurs across national boundaries. Departing from existing approaches that look at such processes from the angle of singular, bounded territorial states, the book argues that a more fruitful method is to examine how state and nation building in one country can influence, and be influenced by, the same processes across borders. It argues that the success or failure of one country’s state building is a process that extends beyond domestic factors such as war preparation, political institutions, and geographic and demographic variables. Rather, it shows that we should conceptualize state building as an interactive process heavily influenced by a “neighborhood effect.” Furthermore, the book moves beyond the academic boundaries that divide arbitrarily China studies and Southeast Asian studies by providing an analysis that ties the state and nation building processes in China with those of Southeast Asia.