India Quarterly, Volume 80, Issue 1, Page 149-163, March 2024.
The purpose of the paper is to reveal the impact of the war unleashed by Russia against Ukraine on the foreign policy of Kazakhstan, as well as to consider the potential development of Kazakhstan’s relations with China, Turkey, the United States and others. Analysis, induction, deduction and synthesis serve as the main methods of research on this problem. The article discloses the problem of preservation by Kazakhstan of a multi-vector, neutral policy in relation to its partners in modern conditions. The strategic programme documents adopted by the government of Kazakhstan were also studied. The analysis of interstate trade turnover for 2022 was used to determine relations between Kazakhstan and Russia after its invasion of Ukraine. Separately, it was considered whether the Russian Federation poses a military threat to Kazakhstan. The materials of the article are of practical and theoretical value for political scientists and specialists in the field of international relations, and researchers of the foreign policy of the Republic of Kazakhstan interested in the features and aspects of the implementation of a multi-vector policy by its leadership.
Category Archives: Accounting History
Measuring profit and performance, a cautionary tale: Birmingham Small Arms c.1911–c.1936
Kazakhstan’s Foreign Policy in the Context of Geopolitical Turbulence
India Quarterly, Volume 80, Issue 1, Page 149-163, March 2024.
The purpose of the paper is to reveal the impact of the war unleashed by Russia against Ukraine on the foreign policy of Kazakhstan, as well as to consider the potential development of Kazakhstan’s relations with China, Turkey, the United States and others. Analysis, induction, deduction and synthesis serve as the main methods of research on this problem. The article discloses the problem of preservation by Kazakhstan of a multi-vector, neutral policy in relation to its partners in modern conditions. The strategic programme documents adopted by the government of Kazakhstan were also studied. The analysis of interstate trade turnover for 2022 was used to determine relations between Kazakhstan and Russia after its invasion of Ukraine. Separately, it was considered whether the Russian Federation poses a military threat to Kazakhstan. The materials of the article are of practical and theoretical value for political scientists and specialists in the field of international relations, and researchers of the foreign policy of the Republic of Kazakhstan interested in the features and aspects of the implementation of a multi-vector policy by its leadership.
The purpose of the paper is to reveal the impact of the war unleashed by Russia against Ukraine on the foreign policy of Kazakhstan, as well as to consider the potential development of Kazakhstan’s relations with China, Turkey, the United States and others. Analysis, induction, deduction and synthesis serve as the main methods of research on this problem. The article discloses the problem of preservation by Kazakhstan of a multi-vector, neutral policy in relation to its partners in modern conditions. The strategic programme documents adopted by the government of Kazakhstan were also studied. The analysis of interstate trade turnover for 2022 was used to determine relations between Kazakhstan and Russia after its invasion of Ukraine. Separately, it was considered whether the Russian Federation poses a military threat to Kazakhstan. The materials of the article are of practical and theoretical value for political scientists and specialists in the field of international relations, and researchers of the foreign policy of the Republic of Kazakhstan interested in the features and aspects of the implementation of a multi-vector policy by its leadership.
Perso-Sanskrit Narratives of the Mughal’s Tasḵẖīr-i-kashmir: Phased Opening, Ecology and Literary Strategies
The Medieval History Journal, Ahead of Print.
This study explores the Mughal conquest of Kashmir (tasḵẖīr-i-kashmīr) through the region’s phased openings rather than a singular watershed event signalling either a climactic loss of independence or ushering in a golden age. Before 1585–89, there were two decades of patronage, diplomacy, and a steady breaching of the valley’s defences. When Mughal dominion was established, sections of the local aristocracy figured prominently as part of the new dispensation of power, while others continued to offer resistance. An analysis of imperial and local Perso-Sanskrit narratives of the conquest yields insight into how Kashmir was incorporated into the Mughal empire. This micro-historical process is the most valorised of historical transitions within the early Mughal literary discourse, it was highly represented as moment of glory and grand vehicle for rhetoric of diplomatic propaganda. This study largely demonstrates pre-modern power elites’ graded political loyalties, multi-laterality of socio-historical and ecological processes that facilitated the Mughal kingdom-seizing in Kashmir. Simultaneously moving beyond the traditional binary of ‘conquest’ vs ‘resistance’ conceptualisation and political abuse of the local narratives, it navigates the analytical efficacy and social logic of five primary narrative constructions of the Conquest produced by Mughal political elites and regional counter-elites in the terminal decade of sixteenth and early decades of the seventeenth century, namely, Akbarnāmā, Insha’ Abū’l Faẓl, Śukha-rājataraṅgiṇī, Bāhāristān-i-Sháhi and Taʼrīḵẖ-i-Kashmir.
This study explores the Mughal conquest of Kashmir (tasḵẖīr-i-kashmīr) through the region’s phased openings rather than a singular watershed event signalling either a climactic loss of independence or ushering in a golden age. Before 1585–89, there were two decades of patronage, diplomacy, and a steady breaching of the valley’s defences. When Mughal dominion was established, sections of the local aristocracy figured prominently as part of the new dispensation of power, while others continued to offer resistance. An analysis of imperial and local Perso-Sanskrit narratives of the conquest yields insight into how Kashmir was incorporated into the Mughal empire. This micro-historical process is the most valorised of historical transitions within the early Mughal literary discourse, it was highly represented as moment of glory and grand vehicle for rhetoric of diplomatic propaganda. This study largely demonstrates pre-modern power elites’ graded political loyalties, multi-laterality of socio-historical and ecological processes that facilitated the Mughal kingdom-seizing in Kashmir. Simultaneously moving beyond the traditional binary of ‘conquest’ vs ‘resistance’ conceptualisation and political abuse of the local narratives, it navigates the analytical efficacy and social logic of five primary narrative constructions of the Conquest produced by Mughal political elites and regional counter-elites in the terminal decade of sixteenth and early decades of the seventeenth century, namely, Akbarnāmā, Insha’ Abū’l Faẓl, Śukha-rājataraṅgiṇī, Bāhāristān-i-Sháhi and Taʼrīḵẖ-i-Kashmir.
Revisiting the Murder of the Jew Priscus in Sixth-Century Paris
The Medieval History Journal, Ahead of Print.
The murder of Priscus the Jew seems to be one of the earliest documented episodes of murder involving Jews in the European Middle Ages. The incident, described by Gregory of Tours (Gregorius Turonensis) in his great work, Decem Libri Historiarum (Ten Books of Histories) involves the murder of the Jew Priscus at the hands of Phatir, his former coreligionist and new convert to Christianity, which occurred in the Frankish Kingdom of Neustria in 581 or 582, during the reign of King Chilperic I. In this study, based on a close reading of the relevant texts I attempt to illuminate what this incident may teach us about Jewish social and political life in the Merovingian kingdoms. I suggest, contrary to previous scholarship that saw the theological aspects of the conversion as paramount, that the murder was the result of a competition among the elite in the court of the king and highlight what we may learn from this case about the sources of Jewish religious law and what Jews and Christians living in this time knew about them. Thus, after a careful reading of the primary source, I propose an interpretation of the circumstances that precipitated the violent act, as well as the manner in which it was recorded in the writings of Gregory of Tours.
The murder of Priscus the Jew seems to be one of the earliest documented episodes of murder involving Jews in the European Middle Ages. The incident, described by Gregory of Tours (Gregorius Turonensis) in his great work, Decem Libri Historiarum (Ten Books of Histories) involves the murder of the Jew Priscus at the hands of Phatir, his former coreligionist and new convert to Christianity, which occurred in the Frankish Kingdom of Neustria in 581 or 582, during the reign of King Chilperic I. In this study, based on a close reading of the relevant texts I attempt to illuminate what this incident may teach us about Jewish social and political life in the Merovingian kingdoms. I suggest, contrary to previous scholarship that saw the theological aspects of the conversion as paramount, that the murder was the result of a competition among the elite in the court of the king and highlight what we may learn from this case about the sources of Jewish religious law and what Jews and Christians living in this time knew about them. Thus, after a careful reading of the primary source, I propose an interpretation of the circumstances that precipitated the violent act, as well as the manner in which it was recorded in the writings of Gregory of Tours.
Introduction: Materiality and Methodology: Ways of Knowing and Narrating
The Medieval History Journal, Volume 26, Issue 2, Page 183-208, November 2023.
Over the past 20 years, a renewed interest in material culture, materialism and materiality has shaped the practice of history in new ways moving the discipline ‘beyond words’ to consider the worlds within things. Attention to the dynamics of materials and production has expanded ways of knowing the past and begun to reshape the kinds of narratives that historians craft. Objects and things can be said to constitute an additional archival repertoire, but objects also require their own ways of reading, methods of analysis and theoretical orientations, especially as we integrate materiality into the robust ways of writing history that have traditionally relied upon the written record alone. Most historians agree that it is not possible to offer a materialist reading in the absence of written sources. Yet, how do the two work together? This special issue is dedicated to exploring the following related questions: What does materiality’s methodology entail? What modes of investigation and narration are deployed in a material analysis? How does a material focus shape and change the historian’s possibilities for narrative and argument? How does the study of objects and things in the medieval and the early modern periods open new ways of writing about and conceptualising a broader and more connected world? The essays gathered in this Special Issue contribute to an understanding of materiality that seeks to facilitate a more convergent understanding of our medieval and early modern pasts.
Over the past 20 years, a renewed interest in material culture, materialism and materiality has shaped the practice of history in new ways moving the discipline ‘beyond words’ to consider the worlds within things. Attention to the dynamics of materials and production has expanded ways of knowing the past and begun to reshape the kinds of narratives that historians craft. Objects and things can be said to constitute an additional archival repertoire, but objects also require their own ways of reading, methods of analysis and theoretical orientations, especially as we integrate materiality into the robust ways of writing history that have traditionally relied upon the written record alone. Most historians agree that it is not possible to offer a materialist reading in the absence of written sources. Yet, how do the two work together? This special issue is dedicated to exploring the following related questions: What does materiality’s methodology entail? What modes of investigation and narration are deployed in a material analysis? How does a material focus shape and change the historian’s possibilities for narrative and argument? How does the study of objects and things in the medieval and the early modern periods open new ways of writing about and conceptualising a broader and more connected world? The essays gathered in this Special Issue contribute to an understanding of materiality that seeks to facilitate a more convergent understanding of our medieval and early modern pasts.
Religion-making in South Asia: An interstitial perspective
The Indian Economic & Social History Review, Volume 61, Issue 1, Page 67-96, January–March 2024.
The study of ‘Hinduism’ in contemporary academia has generated considerable controversy. Many scholars have argued that the idea of a single ancient religion is difficult to substantiate based on the historical record. A common alternative position is that Hinduism is a colonial construct, without well-defined historical antecedents. This paper contributes to a scholarly middle ground, which provides an empirically based yet still contingent analysis of the evolution of ‘Hinduism’, by drawing on evidence from the Sikh tradition. In doing so, it also draws on approaches which interpret Islam as a discursive tradition, subject to contestable representations, shaped by conditions of knowledge and power, as well as by collective aspirations. Sikh attempts at self-definition included distinguishing their tradition from the two larger, pre-existing traditions of Muslims and Hindus in an explicit and self-conscious manner. In doing so, Sikh leaders recognised ‘Hindu’ as a religious category to some degree, well before the colonial period.
The study of ‘Hinduism’ in contemporary academia has generated considerable controversy. Many scholars have argued that the idea of a single ancient religion is difficult to substantiate based on the historical record. A common alternative position is that Hinduism is a colonial construct, without well-defined historical antecedents. This paper contributes to a scholarly middle ground, which provides an empirically based yet still contingent analysis of the evolution of ‘Hinduism’, by drawing on evidence from the Sikh tradition. In doing so, it also draws on approaches which interpret Islam as a discursive tradition, subject to contestable representations, shaped by conditions of knowledge and power, as well as by collective aspirations. Sikh attempts at self-definition included distinguishing their tradition from the two larger, pre-existing traditions of Muslims and Hindus in an explicit and self-conscious manner. In doing so, Sikh leaders recognised ‘Hindu’ as a religious category to some degree, well before the colonial period.
Beyond masters: women’s shifting roles in Nepal’s new neoliberal garment industry
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Learning making: textile-craft, gendered pedagogy and philanthropy
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Indo-Islamicate Perfumes in Early Modern India: Textualisation, Transmissions and Assimilations
The Medieval History Journal, Volume 26, Issue 2, Page 314-352, November 2023.
This article brings to focus the material life of early modern perfumes in the Indian subcontinent. It offers a ‘documentary archaeology’ by foregrounding texts that recorded perfumes in their stage of production and preparation. By studying this corpus, it presents perfumes as a locale where craft, technology and labour interacted with each other in blending scientific knowledge with the natural landscape. With a focus on textualised perfume recipes, listed aromatic ingredients and distillation methods, it examines the various shifts, transitions, cross-cultural material borrowings and finally the assimilations that occurred in the olfactory landscape of an Indo-Islamicate political empire, especially during the Mughal rule in India. A rich perfume-repository, where divergences and acculturations took place could be best understood by identifying the various methods and processes in which material practices and literary traditions were shaping each other. In understanding this, it goes beyond the ephemerality of perfumes and argues in favour of a craft that was labour-intensive, skill-based, technologically innovative and culturally adaptive. Finally, it explores the diversification of its forms, significance of receptacles and amplification of its production, both in texts and in practice, to highlight the pervasive materiality of Indo-Islamicate perfumes in early modern India.
This article brings to focus the material life of early modern perfumes in the Indian subcontinent. It offers a ‘documentary archaeology’ by foregrounding texts that recorded perfumes in their stage of production and preparation. By studying this corpus, it presents perfumes as a locale where craft, technology and labour interacted with each other in blending scientific knowledge with the natural landscape. With a focus on textualised perfume recipes, listed aromatic ingredients and distillation methods, it examines the various shifts, transitions, cross-cultural material borrowings and finally the assimilations that occurred in the olfactory landscape of an Indo-Islamicate political empire, especially during the Mughal rule in India. A rich perfume-repository, where divergences and acculturations took place could be best understood by identifying the various methods and processes in which material practices and literary traditions were shaping each other. In understanding this, it goes beyond the ephemerality of perfumes and argues in favour of a craft that was labour-intensive, skill-based, technologically innovative and culturally adaptive. Finally, it explores the diversification of its forms, significance of receptacles and amplification of its production, both in texts and in practice, to highlight the pervasive materiality of Indo-Islamicate perfumes in early modern India.