Perspectives for a comparative cultural history of the Ostend company interactions in Bengal and China

Taking the source material of the Ostend Company's 18th century maritime trading activities into China and Bengal as a vantage point, this article explores its potential for a comparative history on cultural interaction in the Indian Ocean world. It compares how agents from this Company engaged in cultural interaction as a prerequisite for further economic interaction. Beyond a colonial or econocentric approach, it takes an anthropological perspective considering cultural interaction as a performative learning process, revealing how these agents participated in and made sense of foreign customs and policies. By comparing the diaries of a 1723 merchant-diplomat in Bengal and a 1726 merchant in Canton, it shows similarities and differences in their learning process in both maritime trading environments. This provides a summary of several key themes for a comparative history of cultural interaction, such as performative courtly rituals, the role of informants and information on learning how to interact, and the personal reflections of European merchants. The article also demonstrates the potential for a collaborative approach, via the inclusion of a comparison with older Chinese sources, in establishing a longue durée perspective on specific cultural phenomena as aspects of the learning process, such as the differing significance of clothing, or the ritual use of tea or tobacco in the receiving of guests. Its focus on interaction also reveals the mediating role of Persian or Armenian merchants. Finally, the article also points at the role of unexpected occurrences such as shipwrecks or robbery, as hazardous aspects of maritime trading environments, and the human response to these on both direct and institutional levels. Against an overtly structural approach, this reveals how human-environment interaction also contained an element of unpredictability.

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