Longtemps, l’indianisation a été considérée comme un phénomène historique de transfert d’éléments artistiques, politiques et religieux de l’Inde vers l’Asie du Sud-Est. Or, de plus en plus, la protohistoire de l’Asie du Sud-Est apparaît comme une période clef du processus d’acculturation. C’est ce que suggère l’interprétation sociale des transferts techno-morpho-stylistiques d’origine indienne identifiés au sein de l’assemblage céramique de Khao Sam Kaeo. En effet, elle conduit à penser que le passage de traits culturels indiens a résulté d’une assimilation sélective de la part des autochtones. Elle suggère également que ces traits étaient réinterprétés afin d’être mis au service de représentations locales : à Khao Sam Kaeo, les formes de la transculturation, non fondées sur des rapports de domination, pourraient s’être exercées comme une appropriation identitaire des traits de culture indienne. Si notre travail semble montrer que les élites ont été les vecteurs majeurs des emprunts faits à l’Inde, il témoignerait également du rôle primordial joué par les artisans, dont certains, d’origine indienne, auraient travaillé sous le patronat d’élites locales. Le travail sur place d’artisans exogènes implique une réponse importante de l’Inde dans les échanges, ce qui contrecarre la vision unilatérale de ces derniers, laquelle ne tient pas compte de l’impact des sociétés sud-est asiatiques sur celles du sous-continent indien. Au cours de la protohistoire, les réseaux tournés vers le Golfe du Bengale se sont entremêlés avec ceux de la mer de Chine Méridionale. L’étude des céramiques de Khao Sam Kaeo suggère que ces échanges ont induit le déplacement de certains groupes sociaux (migrants, marchands, artisans) : l’analyse de la distribution interne des différentes traditions céramiques montre que les acteurs étrangers étaient cantonnés à certaines zones du site et témoigne du rôle résolument actif des populations locales, qui se sont adaptées à la présence d’étrangers en structurant l’espace proto-urbain / For a long time, indianisation was considered as a historical phenomenon involving the transfer of artistic, political, and religious elements from India to Southeast Asia. But increasingly, Southeast Asian protohistory appears to be a key period in the acculturation process. This is suggested by the social interpretation of techno-morpho-stylistic transfers of Indian origin that have been identified at the heart of the ceramic assemblage of Khao Sam Kaeo. Indeed, it shows that the transfer of Indian cultural traits may result from selective assimilation by the indigenous peoples. It also reveals that these cultural traits were probably reinterpreted in order to be placed at the service of local representations: at Khao Sam Kaeo, the forms of transculturation were not based on relations of domination. If this study shows that the elites were probably the major vectors of cultural borrowings from India, it also suggests the primordial role played by craftsmen, some of whom were probably Indian and would have worked under the patronage of local elites. The work of exogenous potters at Khao Sam Kaeo indicates that India played an important role in trade, a contention that challenges the unilateral view of trade, which ignores the impact of Southeast Asian societies on those of the Indian subcontinent. During the protohistory, trade networks oriented towards the Bay of Bengal intermingled with those of the South China Sea. The study of Khao Sam Kaeo’s ceramics seems to show that these exchanges induced the movement of certain social groups (migrants, merchants, craftsmen): analysis of the internal distribution of different ceramic traditions shows that foreign people were confined to certain areas of the site and may testifies to the resolutely active role of the local populations, which structured the proto-urban space adapting to the presence of foreigners in trans-Asiatic exchanges

Anglo-Indians, a designation acquired in the 1911 Indian Census, had previously been known as Eurasians, East Indians, Indo-Britons and half-castes. ‘Anglo-Indian’ had previously denoted, and among some scholars continues to denote, Britons long resident in India. We will define Anglo-Indians as a particular mixed race Indo-European population arising out of the European trading and imperial presence in India, and one of several constructed categories by which transient Britons sought to demarcate racial difference within the Raj’s socio-racial hierarchy. Anglo-Indians were placed in an intermediary (and differentially remunerated) position between Indians and Domiciled Europeans (another category excluded from fully ‘white’ status), who in turn were placed below imported British superiors. The domiciled community (of Anglo-Indians and Domiciled Europeans, treated as a single socio-economic class by Britons) were relied upon as loyal buttressing agents of British rule who could be deployed to help run the Raj’s strategically sensitive transport and communication infrastructure, and who were made as a term of their service to serve in auxiliary military forces which could help to ensure the internal security of the Raj and respond to strikes, civil disobedience or crises arising from international conflict. The thesis reveals how calls for Indianisation of state and railway employment by Indian nationalists in the assemblies inaugurated by the 1919 Government of India Act threatened, through opening up their reserved intermediary positions to competitive entry and examination by Indians, to undermine the economic base of domiciled employment. Anglo-Indian leaders responded with varying strategies. Foremost was the definition of Anglo-Indians as an Indian minority community which demanded political representation through successive phases of constitutional change and statutory safeguards for their existing employment. This study explores various strategies including: deployment of multiple identities; widespread racial passing by individuals and families; agricultural colonisation schemes; and calls for individual, familial or collective migration.