Output details
30 - History
University College London
"Frictions" d'empire: les reseaux de circulation des successions et des patrimonies dans la Bombay coloniale des annees 1780
This article contributes to historiographical debates on imperial networks (of persons, things and capital). Using original archival research, it investigates the constraints on flows of capital from later 18th-century colonial India to Britain, and the social and cultural mechanisms used by East India Company servants to compensate for these ‘frictions’ of empire. Beginning with a survey of network paradigms as they apply to empire, the article examines the Bombay remittance system’s interpenetration with (for example) probate administration, gifting, domesticity and slavery. The article underlines the significance of sociable epistolary practices for the maintenance of colonial credit networks in British India.