Lascars at war

Maritime labour and the logistics of empire in Amitav Ghosh’s Ibis trilogy

Bibliographic Data

ID24217300
AuthorsArnab Das (0000-0001-6092-9514, Indian Institute of Technology Madras)
Year2026
Pages1-15
Publication date2026-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Postcolonial Writing (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1744-9855 • E-ISSN: 1744-9863
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17449855.2026.2730665
OpenAlexW7215082017
LanguageEN
References cited10

This article foregrounds lascars, an indispensable yet overlooked category of imperial labour, in its analysis of Amitav Ghosh’s Ibis trilogy: Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke, and Flood of Fire. Rather than being identifiable as subaltern heroes or figures of cultural hybridity, lascars are understood as agents who navigate the material conditions of empire and negotiate their status as shipboard, commercial, or martial units of labour discipline. Drawing on James C. Scott’s everyday resistance, Michel Foucault’s biopolitics, Dipesh Chakrabarty’s heterogeneous temporality, Aaron Jaffer’s maritime history of the lascars, and Isabel Hofmeyr and Charne Lavery’s Indian Ocean methodology, the article offers a labour-centric, counter-archival reading of the novels. Through a focused reading of command, punishment, coercion, and dispersal, the article positions Ghosh’s work as a counter-archive of imperial logistics, ultimately arguing that the trilogy reframes empire as a system sustained by the exploitation of colonial labour for commerce and war.

Amitav Ghosh · Biopolitics · colonial labor · dispersal · everyday resistance · Ibis trilogy · Indian ocean · Indian Ocean world · lascars · maritime labor · River of Smoke · Sea of Poppies · work discipline · Colonial History and Postcolonial Studies · Literature: history, themes, analysis · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies

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