Devika Shankar
Biographic Data
| ID | 376462 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Devika Shankar |
| GIVEN NAMES | Devika |
| FAMILY NAME | Shankar |
| SIGNATURE | SHANKAR D |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Hong Kong |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5462-7349 |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 8 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 5 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 8 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
A Contingent Commodity: Boston, Bombay and the End of the Global Ice Trade
In the mid-nineteenth century huge blocks of ice were harvested in New England and transported to port cities as far away as Bombay, Calcutta and even Hong Kong. After expanding in scale for a few decades, the trade would suddenly decline in the latter part of the century. Almost all histories of the ice trade have attributed this decline to the rise of artificial ice. Through a focus on the trade between the United States and India, however, thi…
An Encroaching Sea: Nature, Sovereignty and Development at the Edge of British India 1860–1950
Ecological and political instability have time and again emerged as catalysts for risky development projects along India's south-west coastline. Devika Shankar probes this complicated relationship between crisis and development through a focus on a port development project executed in Cochin in the first quarter of the twentieth century amidst significant political and ecological uncertainty. While ecological concerns were triggered by increasing…
Isabel Hofmeyr. Dockside Reading: Hydrocolonialism and the Custom House
Journal Article Isabel Hofmeyr. Dockside Reading: Hydrocolonialism and the Custom House. Get access Isabel Hofmeyr. Dockside Reading: Hydrocolonialism and the Custom House. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2022. Pp. 136. Paper $22.95. Devika Shankar Devika Shankar The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR Email: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 129, Is…
A Harbor That Never Was
Through a focus on an abandoned harbor development project in Tuticorin in southeastern India, this article interrogates the factors shaping port development in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Tuticorin—which at the time was the second-busiest port in the Madras presidency—had emerged as the likeliest site for an ambitious port development scheme, thanks largely to its intimate relationship with both Colombo and the plantations of Cey…
A Forest of Ships: Malabar’s State Forests and Bombay’s Dockyards, 1795–1822
This paper examines how the annexation of Malabar by the English East India Company in the last decade of the eighteenth century allowed the colonial administration to experiment with novel forms of state control in the region’s forests. At the same time, through a focus on the connections forged between Malabar’s forests and Bombay’s dockyards, this paper will use archival sources to examine the crucial role played by the timber monopoly introdu…
Water, Fish and Property in Colonial India, 1860-1890
Almost exactly a hundred years after the Permanent Settlement of 1793 revolutionized property relations in Bengal, a far less studied legislation would subtly extend the rule of property to include the province's waters. Bengal's Private Fisheries Protection Act 1889, which is usually regarded as having been motivated by conservationist or economic concerns, was in fact an attempt to resolve intractable legal problems surrounding the status of fl…
A Slippery Sovereignty: International Law and the Development of British Cochin
British Cochin was a port in southwestern India surrounded by princely states. This article uses a dispute surrounding its limits to interrogate the role international law played in generating novel forms of political claim-making among European and non-European powers at the turn of the twentieth century. Cochin was located in an area where both physical and political boundaries were hard to define. Situated at the tip of a narrow coastline surr…
Contested lands and contentious lines: Land acquisition for the railways in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Delhi
Through a focus on the acquisition of land for the railways in Delhi from 1860 to 1930, this article explores the variegated ways in which people could respond to the threat of forcible acquisition. Scholars have highlighted the extraordinary powers that had been vested in the colonial state through successive Land Acquisition Acts which had made the acquisition of land for ‘public purposes’ incontestable. Railway lines, moreover, first began to …
A Harbor That Never Was
Through a focus on an abandoned harbor development project in Tuticorin in southeastern India, this article interrogates the factors shaping port development in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Tuticorin—which at the time was the second-busiest port in the Madras presidency—had emerged as the likeliest site for an ambitious port development scheme, thanks largely to its intimate relationship with both Colombo and the plantations of Cey…
Water, Fish and Property in Colonial India, 1860-1890
Almost exactly a hundred years after the Permanent Settlement of 1793 revolutionized property relations in Bengal, a far less studied legislation would subtly extend the rule of property to include the province's waters. Bengal's Private Fisheries Protection Act 1889, which is usually regarded as having been motivated by conservationist or economic concerns, was in fact an attempt to resolve intractable legal problems surrounding the status of fl…
A Slippery Sovereignty: International Law and the Development of British Cochin
British Cochin was a port in southwestern India surrounded by princely states. This article uses a dispute surrounding its limits to interrogate the role international law played in generating novel forms of political claim-making among European and non-European powers at the turn of the twentieth century. Cochin was located in an area where both physical and political boundaries were hard to define. Situated at the tip of a narrow coastline surr…
Contested lands and contentious lines: Land acquisition for the railways in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Delhi
Through a focus on the acquisition of land for the railways in Delhi from 1860 to 1930, this article explores the variegated ways in which people could respond to the threat of forcible acquisition. Scholars have highlighted the extraordinary powers that had been vested in the colonial state through successive Land Acquisition Acts which had made the acquisition of land for ‘public purposes’ incontestable. Railway lines, moreover, first began to …
Contested lands and contentious lines: Land acquisition for the railways in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Delhi
Through a focus on the acquisition of land for the railways in Delhi from 1860 to 1930, this article explores the variegated ways in which people could respond to the threat of forcible acquisition. Scholars have highlighted the extraordinary powers that had been vested in the colonial state through successive Land Acquisition Acts which had made the acquisition of land for ‘public purposes’ incontestable. Railway lines, moreover, first began to …
A Slippery Sovereignty: International Law and the Development of British Cochin
British Cochin was a port in southwestern India surrounded by princely states. This article uses a dispute surrounding its limits to interrogate the role international law played in generating novel forms of political claim-making among European and non-European powers at the turn of the twentieth century. Cochin was located in an area where both physical and political boundaries were hard to define. Situated at the tip of a narrow coastline surr…
A Forest of Ships: Malabar’s State Forests and Bombay’s Dockyards, 1795–1822
This paper examines how the annexation of Malabar by the English East India Company in the last decade of the eighteenth century allowed the colonial administration to experiment with novel forms of state control in the region’s forests. At the same time, through a focus on the connections forged between Malabar’s forests and Bombay’s dockyards, this paper will use archival sources to examine the crucial role played by the timber monopoly introdu…
Water, Fish and Property in Colonial India, 1860-1890
Almost exactly a hundred years after the Permanent Settlement of 1793 revolutionized property relations in Bengal, a far less studied legislation would subtly extend the rule of property to include the province's waters. Bengal's Private Fisheries Protection Act 1889, which is usually regarded as having been motivated by conservationist or economic concerns, was in fact an attempt to resolve intractable legal problems surrounding the status of fl…
An Encroaching Sea: Nature, Sovereignty and Development at the Edge of British India 1860–1950
Ecological and political instability have time and again emerged as catalysts for risky development projects along India's south-west coastline. Devika Shankar probes this complicated relationship between crisis and development through a focus on a port development project executed in Cochin in the first quarter of the twentieth century amidst significant political and ecological uncertainty. While ecological concerns were triggered by increasing…
Isabel Hofmeyr. Dockside Reading: Hydrocolonialism and the Custom House
Journal Article Isabel Hofmeyr. Dockside Reading: Hydrocolonialism and the Custom House. Get access Isabel Hofmeyr. Dockside Reading: Hydrocolonialism and the Custom House. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2022. Pp. 136. Paper $22.95. Devika Shankar Devika Shankar The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR Email: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 129, Is…
A Harbor That Never Was
Through a focus on an abandoned harbor development project in Tuticorin in southeastern India, this article interrogates the factors shaping port development in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Tuticorin—which at the time was the second-busiest port in the Madras presidency—had emerged as the likeliest site for an ambitious port development scheme, thanks largely to its intimate relationship with both Colombo and the plantations of Cey…
A Contingent Commodity: Boston, Bombay and the End of the Global Ice Trade
In the mid-nineteenth century huge blocks of ice were harvested in New England and transported to port cities as far away as Bombay, Calcutta and even Hong Kong. After expanding in scale for a few decades, the trade would suddenly decline in the latter part of the century. Almost all histories of the ice trade have attributed this decline to the rise of artificial ice. Through a focus on the trade between the United States and India, however, thi…
Colonialism (6 works) · Geography (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Political science (6 works) · Archaeology (5 works) · Economics (4 works) · Economy (4 works) · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Politics (4 works)