This article proposes a new framework of analysis for studying inter-imperial spaces in global history. The analytical construct developed here – that of the inter-imperial microregion – highlights the density of netw... more abstractThis article proposes a new framework of analysis for studying inter-imperial spaces in global history. The analytical construct developed here – that of the inter-imperial microregion – highlights the density of networks and interactions found in certain areas with multiple competing polities. It provides a relational approach to the study of transnational and inter-polity exchanges that challenges traditional imperial narratives and suggests a more direct engagement between global, regional, and local histories. After discussing the theoretical and historiographical implications of this model, the article goes on to look at empirical evidence from the case of the Danish West Indies. It analyses the role that these Caribbean colonies played within the inter-imperial microregion of the Leeward Islands during the century from 1730 to 1830. The case study is structured around three central elements of colonial life – geography, security, and commerce – showing how these created the conditions for a high level of interdependence between colonies of multiple empires in the region.

World History, Colonialism, Caribbean History, Empire, and Imperialism

Publication Date: Mar 2013

Publication Name: Journal of Global History

Historians have recently moved beyond describing empires as territorially discrete and expanding polities, emphasizing instead their layered sovereignty and uneven control of space. This perspective deserves further e... more abstractHistorians have recently moved beyond describing empires as territorially discrete and expanding polities, emphasizing instead their layered sovereignty and uneven control of space. This perspective deserves further elaboration through research on political formations that drew on imperial power while also extending beyond single empires and their spheres of influence. This chapter argues for the importance of two such patterns, coastal and insular microregions, in the early nineteenth century. Politically plural zones, such microregions linked maritime and territorial spaces in ways that have been largely overlooked in the literature on imperial expansion, as well as in studies of borderland regions. In the early nineteenth century, a handful of such zones attracted attention as global hotspots where cross-polity connections and political experimentation were creating novel opportunities as well as volatility. The analysis of such zones suggests that microregions should figure prominently in world historical narratives.

Historical Geography, Legal History, Global History, and Empire

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Publication Date: Mar 2015

Publication Name: The Uses of Space in Early Modern History

Globalization, Postcolonial Studies, Urban History, Global cities, Colonialism, and 1 more

Dissertation The present study turns the lens on a handful of islands in the eastern part of the Caribbean Sea, known as the Leeward Islands, in an attempt to illuminate hitherto overlooked characteristics of imper... more abstractDissertation The present study turns the lens on a handful of islands in the eastern part of the Caribbean Sea, known as the Leeward Islands, in an attempt to illuminate hitherto overlooked characteristics of imperial rule and colonial practice during the first age of global imperialism, spanning roughly from the 1780s to the 1830s. The dissertation combines a global history approach to the study of empire with a detailed empirical analysis of a region located at the heart of the Atlantic world. The Leeward Islands’ place at the maritime center of transatlantic commerce, transportation, and communication became increasingly prominent, and many of them were to occupy unique positions of regional and oceanic significance during this period. St. Thomas, a colony in the Danish West Indies, and the Swedish island of St. Barthélemy became the preferred ports of call for ships passing through the region with a variety of licit and illicit goods, from privateer loot to smuggled luxury items to illegally traded slaves. British Tortola became the seat of a crucial prize court in the region’s complex inter-imperial legal regime, often causing ships to go out of their way to bring prizes and legal disputes to that island. Wealth accumulation was not the only phenomenon characterizing these decades, as the white colonial elites on the islands shared a common and increasing fear of uprisings among the African and Afro-Caribbean slave populations living among them, and on whose backs they had built much of their fortunes. The dissertation makes a number of interventions in the field. On a theoretical level, it constructs a framework for analyzing a certain type of inter-polity space - what I term the inter-imperial microregion. This phenomenon goes beyond the specific geographical area analyzed in the dissertation, and can be found across the globe during the period of European overseas expansion. The formation encompasses a number of different elements, including political, legal, social, spatial, and economic processes and networks. The political space created by these networks extended beyond the sphere of inter-imperial or foreign policy, and came to encompass sets of practices and institutions of governance most often thought of as being the sole domain of the state. The perspective draws upon recent interdisciplinary scholarship in the study of empire and on theoretical innovations stemming from the new wave of historical sociology. On a historical level, the analysis highlights the role played by cross-imperial practices such as contraband trade, slavery, and opportunistic privateering in shaping and defining the Leeward Islands as a politically polyglot zone of thin sovereignty and local integration, characterized more by the interests of intercolonial networks than by those of imperial or national actors. Crucially, the dissertation underscores the unique role played by smaller imperial powers, such as Sweden and Denmark-Norway, within the dynamics of inter-imperial relations in general and in the process of nineteenth century British ascendancy in particular – a topic that has been all but overlooked in the scholarship thus far. Finally, the dissertation contributes to the ongoing historicization of the concept of globalization by showing how early globalizing processes emanated from increasingly integrated regional spaces, manifesting as layered networks of trans-polity connections and activity – from tightly knit microregions at the local level to transoceanic migratory and commercial flows on the global. I argue that to study early globalization is to study networks within networks – analyzing both the interdependence and integration of locally anchored regional actors and the influence of larger global forces upon them.

Atlantic World, History of Slavery, Colonialism, Caribbean History, and Empire