Als "Coolie" gilt gemeinhin der "ungelernte" Arbeiter. Das Anbieten von Leiharbeit hatte diverse präkoloniale Vorläufer. Im 19. Jahrhundert wurde der Versuch unternommen, den Begriff des "Coolies" durch diskursive Auslegungen und die Methoden einer "flexiblen-inflexiblen" Arbeit neu zu prägen. "Coolie"-Arbeit galt meist als ein Kompromiss zwischen der Vergangenheit (Sklavenarbeit) und der Zukunft (freie Arbeit/Lohnarbeit) und als Spagat zwischen beiden Systemen. Sie wurde als ein Übergangsstadium und Teil eines versprochenen Wandels dargestellt. Die Teeplantagen Assams nahmen wie viele andere tropische Plantagen in Südasien auch im 19. Jahrhundert offiziell ihren Betrieb auf. Ursprünglich wurden sie von lokalen Arbeitern betrieben. Erst in den späten 1850er-Jahren wurden die lokalen Arbeiter durch von außerhalb der Provinz importierten Arbeitskräften ersetzt, die in der historischen Literatur gemeinhin unproblematisch mit dem Begriff "Coolies" belegt werden. Durch eine Analyse des Übergangs von der lokal rekrutiert für "Kuli" Arbeit und durch eine Analyse seiner Einführung die Studie argumentiert, dass "Kuli" Arbeit wurde "produziert" in den Kolonialkapitalistischen Plantagen in Assam. Mein Anliegen besteht dabei ausdrücklich nicht darin, einen zügellosen kolonialen Kapitalismus nahezulegen, dessen Strategie es ist, "Coolies" zu definieren und hervorzubringen oder die historischen Umstände, Verhandlungen, Streitfragen und Krisen zu betonen. Ich versuche vielmehr, die Erzählungen vom plötzlichen Auftauchen des archetypischen Teeplantagen-"Coolies" (d.i. als importierter und unfreier Lohnarbeiter) zu hinterfragen und sein Erscheinen, sein Bestehen und seine Verlagerungen mehr im Sinne grundlegender und diskursiver Prozesse auszulegen. / “Coolie” is a generic category for the “unskilled” manual labour. The offering of services for hire had various pre-colonial lineages. In the nineteenth century there was an attempt to recast the term in discursive constructions and material practices for “mobilized-immobilized” labour. Coolie labour was often proclaimed as a deliberate compromise straddling the regimes of the past (slave labour) and the future (free labour). It was portrayed as a stage in a promised transition. The tea plantations of Assam, like many other tropical plantations in South Asia, were inaugurated and formalized during this period. They were initially worked by the locals. In the late 1850s, the locals were replaced by labourers imported from outside the province who were unquestioningly designated “coolies” in the historical literature. Qualifying this framework of transition (local to coolie labour) and introduction (of coolie labour), this study makes a case for the “production” of coolie labour in the history of the colonial-capitalist plantations in Assam. The intention of the research is not to suggest an unfettered agency of colonial-capitalism in defining and “producing” coolies, with an emphasis on the attendant contingencies, negotiations, contestations and crises. The study intervenes in the narratives of an abrupt appearance of the archetypical coolie of the tea gardens (i.e., imported and indentured) and situates this archetype’s emergence, sustenance and shifts in the context of material and discursive processes.

Thesis advisor: Prasannan Parthasarathi / This dissertation is a study of state power, technological change, and class conflict at the port of colonial Calcutta. It explores the period between 1860 and 1910 in order to recast historical understandings of the relationship between the colonial state, science and technology, and labor. The dissertation explores a period of great change, resulting from massive increases in public investment. These investments transformed the port's infrastructure, making the loading and unloading of cargo ships significantly easier. They were also designed to secure the supply of cheap labor, and better supervise the port's labor force. The investments involved the deployment of new technologies and scientific knowledge. This included various new kinds of machinery, such as cranes and railroads that were designed to speed up the pace of work or occasionally to automate the loading and unloading of cargoes, as well as, the use of new medical knowledge to prevent the spread of disease. International trade benefited greatly from these investments, but their effects on labor were more complex. The new machinery made the work of loading and unloading easier, but also more dangerous. Moreover, many workers resented the enhanced supervision that they were subject to. In a bid to secure the supply of labor, the government authorities managing the port attempted to alter the existing casual hiring practices of the port with new hiring systems wherein laborers were locked into long term contracts with their employers. Many workers fought back through acts of everyday resistance and well organized strikes. They were most successful towards the turn of the century when a plague epidemic disrupted the supply of labor in Calcutta. While some workers fled the city, others fought for, and won higher wages. The state was also forced to invest in expensive automation and labor welfare projects in order to secure their workforce. The dissertation highlights the critical role of technology in the reshaping of labor relations in the British Raj. It also underscores the central importance of trade for the colonial state. Finally, the dissertation underscores the dialectic that characterized the relationship between labor and colonial capital. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History.

This dissertation explores the relationship between fiction, knowledge and "knowing" in Latin American discourses of China and Japan. By scrutinizing Brazilian and Hispanic American travel journals, novels, short stories and essays from the nineteenth century to the present, Disorientations engages with the epistemological problems of writing across cultural boundaries and proposes a novel entryway into the study of East Asia and Latin American through the notions of "cultural distance," "fictional Sinology" and "critical exoticism." / Romance Languages and Literatures