Description
Book Synopsis While the study of “indigenous intermediaries” is today the focus of some of the most interesting research in the historiography of colonialism, its roots extend back to at least the 1970s. The contributions to this volume revisit Ronald E. Robinson’s theory of collaboration in a range of historical contexts by melding it with theoretical perspectives derived from postcolonial studies and transnational history. In case studies ranging globally over the course of four centuries, these essays offer nuanced explorations of the varied, complex interactions between imperial and local actors, with particular attention to those shifting and ambivalent roles that transcend simple binaries of colonizer and colonized.
Trade Review “The editors of this stimulating volume should be congratulated for bringing together such a wide range of topics without a loss of focus. This book will surely serve as food for thought for anyone interested in this important topic.” • Comparativ
“Provocative and original, these contributions challenge us to rethink the basic tenets of colonial governance. The editors avoid the pitfall common to numerous collections: atomized chapters that fail to relate to each other. Here, the contributions are strongly connected by the issue of local or indigenous co-operation in imperial conquest, administration and fiscal exaction.” • Martin Thomas, University of Exeter
Table of Contents List of Figures and Tables
Introduction: Cooperation and Empire. Local Realities of Global Processes
Tanja Bührer, Flavio Eichmann, Stig Förster and Benedikt Stuchtey
PART I: CASE STUDIES
Chapter 1.
Caciques: Indigenous Rulers and the Colonial Regime in Yucatán in the Sixteenth Century
Ute Schüren
Chapter 2.
Connecting Worlds: Women as Intermediaries in the Portuguese Overseas Empire, 1500–1600
Amélia Polónia and Rosa Capelão
Chapter 3.
Cooperation and Cultural Adaption: British Diplomats at the Court of the Nizam of Hyderabad, c. 1779–1815
Tanja Bührer
Chapter 4.
Local Cooperation in a Subversive Colony: Martinique 1802–09
Flavio Eichmann
Chapter 5
. Uncle Toms and Kupapas: ‘Collaboration’ versus Alliance in a Nineteenth-Century New Zealand Context
Vincent O’Malley
Chapter 6
. ‘Collaboration’ or Sabotage? The Settlers in German Southwest Africa between Colonial State and Indigenous Polities
Matthias Häußler
Chapter 7
. Chieftaincy as a Political Resource in the German Colony of Cameroon, 1884–1916
Ulrike Schaper
Chapter 8
. Cooperation at its Limits: Re-Reading the British Constitution in South Africa
Charles V. Reed
Chapter 9.
Key Alliance? ‘Native Guards’ and European Administrators in Sub-Saharan Africa from a Comparative Perspective (1918–59)
Alexander Keese
Chapter 10
. The Cooperation between the British and Faisal I of Iraq (1921–32): Evolution of a Romance
Myriam Yakoubi
Chapter 11
. Collaborating on Unequal Terms: Cross-Cultural Co-operation and Educational Work in Colonial Sudan, 1934–56
Iris Seri-Hersch
PART II: CONCLUDING ESSAYS
Chapter 12.
Indigenous Agents of Colonial Rule in Africa and India: Defining the Colonial State through its Secondary Bureaucracy
Ralph A. Austen
Chapter 13
. Indigenous Cooperation: Foundation of Colonial Empires or New Historical Myth?
Wolfgang Reinhard
Index
