Asia Economic History Seminars 2025-26

Seminar organisers: Zoey Shen, Tom Learmouth, Andy, Anggi Novianti

Venue:

Winter Term: CBG.2.02 (Centre Building) unless otherwise stated

Time: 12-1pm, unless otherwise stated

Winter Term 2025 - 2026

27 January- Online only

• Mohd Mokhtar
• Constructing Colonial Cost of Living Index in British Malaya during the interwar years
• Abstract:
  In the aftermath of the First World War, Malaya experienced significant volatility in the market prices of rubber and tin, which rendered many European enterprises unable to sustain operations in these two industries. A direct consequence was a contraction in employers’ capacity to pay wages, as export revenues from rubber and tin were insufficient to cover operating costs. This situation contributed to rising living costs among both manual labourers and government employees. Consequently, these groups became increasingly dependent on the colonial government to mitigate these difficulties. Despite this, throughout the interwar years, Malaya’s GDP grew steadily compared with that of Indonesia and the Philippines. This presentation examines the construction of a colonial standard of living introduced by the Malayan colonial government, which served as a benchmark for the determination of minimum wages. The method employed by the colonial government in Malaya, through the Department of Statistics, to measure the cost of living was based on the same approach adopted by the Colonial Office, considering expenditures such as food, rent, leisure, domestic servants, and healthcare. However, this standard functioned primarily as a guideline for employers, as wage rates set by private employers were generally lower than those prescribed by the government standard.

03 March- Online only (Zoom link)

• Şahin Yeşilyurt (Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University)
• Attracting Starlings: Locust Invasions, Taxation, and the Role of Starling Sheikhs in Ottoman Society
• Abstract:
  This study explores the practice of “starling water” and the role of the so-called “starling sheikhs” from the perspective of Ottoman tax history. Believed to mobilize starlings against locust invasions that threatened agricultural production, starling water was employed by the family of Sheikh Ali Semerkandî (1320–1457), who gained recognition for their sustained efforts in mitigating locust damage. This family, known as the starling sheikhs, was granted tax exemptions in recognition of their public service. These privileges were renewed through imperial decrees issued by successive sultans and remained in effect into the twentieth century. Despite occasional conflicts with tax officials, the Ottoman administration consistently underscored that starling sheikhs should not be subjected to coercion or disrespect due to the societal significance of their role. Over time, the family’s elevated status prompted fraudulent claims of kinship by individuals seeking to benefit from tax exemptions and relocate to the Semerkandî family’s region. While some contemporary interpretations suggest that the water employed in their rituals functioned as a talisman, this study, drawing on Ottoman archival sources, argues that the practice aligns with rukye—a legitimate Islamic healing and protective practice—thus refuting the association with superstition or folk magic.

10 March- Online only (Zoom link)

• Pim de Zwart (Wageningen University)
• Tragedy of the Tropics: Colonialism, Commodities and Commons in Southeast Asian Deforestation since 1850”.
• Abstract:
  Why did the rise of global colonial trade since 1850 cause massive deforestation in some areas of the “Global South”, but not in others? Southeast Asia suffered some of the highest deforestation rates in the world and offers a rich area for study due to its political and social-economic diversity. In my presentation I will introduce a new project that investigates long-run deforestation rates in insular Southeast Asia. We aim to develop new estimates of forest cover based on colonial-era vegetation and topographic maps and statistical materials. To explain the observed patterns of spatial environmental change, we will examine the interaction of global commodity trade with colonial policies, local land rights, and socio-economic and political inequalities.

26 May- Online only

• Ghassan Moazzin (The University of Hong Kong)
• TBC
• Abstract:
  TBC

Seminar organisers: Zoey Shen, Tom Learmouth, Andy, Anggi Novianti

Venue:

Autumn Term: CKK.2.18 (Cheng Kin Ku Building) unless otherwise stated

Time: 12-1pm, unless otherwise stated

Autumn Term 2025 - 2026

28 October- Online only

• Masato Shizume (Waseda) and Makoto Fukumoto (Waseda)
• Modern Banking Reforms and Financial Activities of Indigenous Merchants: A Case from Japan in the Late 19th Century
• Abstract:
  Following the opening of the treaty ports in 1859 and Meiji Restoration in 1868, Japan instituted a series of drastic reforms, successfully modernized, and achieved prolonged economic growth. Among other entities, national banks structured as joint stock companies according to the US model played a key role in the modernization of the country by providing the society with liquidity and integrating the national financial markets. We explore the factors that led to the success of the national banks by constructing new datasets characterizing the origins of the national banks and the viability of individual national banks. We then perform regressions with this database to explore the emergence of banking activities during the preceded period and to test whether the origins of the banks affected their viability and regional economic growth. Empirical results from econometric analysis and case studies demonstrate that commoners who engaged in commercial activities played a key role in Japan’s modernization as the founders of the national banks.

25 November- In person and online

• Hugh Whittaker (Oxford)
• Revisiting Late Development and Compressed Development in East Asia
• Abstract:
  Two versions of ‘late development’ are reviewed – Dore’s version derived from Japan, and Gerschenkron’s version derived from Europe and applied to Japan, and then other East Asian countries. ‘Late development’ has always had critics on empirical grounds, but there are conceptual problems as well. These led to its waning influence from the 1990s, but some of the major problems, including unilinear evolution, are addressed under the concept of ‘compressed development,’ which offers a comparative evolutionary framework for economic and social development especially relevant to East Asia.

02 December-Online only

• James B. Lewis (Oxford)
• The Aftermath of the Imjin War in Early Modern East Asia
• Abstract:
  The talk will offer an overview of the contents of a forthcoming book from Brill, entitled The Aftermath of the Imjin War in Early Modern East Asia, edited by Rebekah Clements, Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) and The Autonomous University of Barcelona and James B Lewis, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford and Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. The volume seeks to understand the regional legacy of the East Asian War of 1592-1598, also known as the Imjin War. The focus of the volume is on the human, environmental, and technological aftermath of the war to capture the long-term continuities and discontinuities at the beginning of the “early modern” period in East Asia. The volume seeks to re-orient research on East Asia during the post-Imjin period by bringing this large but often-overlooked conflict into the foreground of sixteenth to seventeenth-century East Asian and World History. The talk will focus on the theoretical propositions in Chapter One: ‘The Imjin War and the Beginnings of the Early Modern in East Asia’, by Rebekah Clements, Barend Noordam (Heidelberg University), and James Lewis.