Changing Society along with Developing Port Cities in India in the 17th-18th Century

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26884026
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: History of Asia and Africa
• Research Institution: Kyoto University
• Principal Investigator: Wada Ikuko 京都大学, 白眉センター, 特定助教 (80600717)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-08-29 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 港町 / 南アジア史

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This research explored changes observed in and around port towns on the Coromandel Coast in the later seventeenth and early eighteenth century. This work aimed to place the early history of Madras more in the context of local history of South India, as the process is usually considered to be the beginning of the English colonization of India and so has been examined mainly from the perspective of European expansion. For such a purpose it is necessary to examine multilingual primary sources including the records of both English and Dutch East India Companies and Persian manuscripts. Analyzing part of those materials shows us what changes the existing ports in the region experienced in those days, which provides appropriate examples to compare with the case of Madras.

Free Research Field

人文学