Adam Knobler
Adam Knobler is Professor of the History of Religions at Ruhr Universität Bochum in Germany. He is the author of numerous articles and two monographic studies, focusing on the uses of medieval mythologies in the context of more modern political discourses, in Europe and globally. A member of the WHA for nearly 35 years, he received his PhD from the University of Cambridge.
Ruhr Universität Bochum
Session
In 1992, at the very first WHA meeting, held in Philadelphia, the late Philip Curtin stated, as something of an afterthought, that it would be instructive to examine what he termed the Malayo-Polynesian Diaspora in the context of the paradigm of World History. Thirty-four years later, this “afterthought” remains an open challenge for world historians. How various scholars have begun to approach this topic , its possibilities for world history and the sources for such a endeavor shall be the focus of this paper.
The Malayo-Polynesian, or Austronesian Diaspora, has been the subject of study of linguists, archaeologists and the odd anthropologist for the 30-plus years since Curtin made his remark, yet historians have largely demurred. Yet with currently over 1200 different ethnicities under its mantle, and a geographical span from Madagascar to Rapa Nui, the Austronesian Diaspora is certainly a global/world phenomenon.
Similarities between these societies are bountiful: Most of the region was occupied, starting in the 16th century, by Europeans, and eventually North Americans, in search of spices and wealth. Ships and ship building, from catamarans to outriggers, are ubiquitous among the societies of the Diaspora, as were and are similar architectural building styles, music and dance forms, the carving of jade, rock art, body art and tattooing.
The diaspora also had contact with the non-Austronesian world, notably the Americas and Africa.
This connectivity, both internal and external, places the Austronesians as a widespread, indeed global, peoples, and worthy of study in the context of World History.