比较文化史的视角:奥斯坦德公司在孟加拉及中国的互动

Perspectives for a Comparative Cultural History of Ostend Company Interactions in Bengal & China

以奥斯坦德公司18世纪时在中国和孟加拉的海上贸易活动的原始资料为切入点,本文将试图利用这些材料书写印度洋世界文化交流的比较史。本文将比较该公司代理所从事的文化交流活动,如何成为进一步的经济互动的先决条件。本文将采用人类学的视角,试图超越殖民研究或经济中心主义的路径,将文化互动视为一个施行学习的过程,揭示了公司代理如何参与并搞清外国海关和政策。

Taking the source material available for the Ostend Company’s eighteenth century maritime trading activities in China and Bengal as a vantage point, this article will explore the potential of this material for writing a comparative history on cultural interaction in the Indian Ocean world. It will compare how agents from this Company engaged in cultural interaction as a prerequisite for further economic interaction. Beyond a colonial or econocentric approach? the paper will assume an anthropological perspective, considering cultural interactions as a performative learning process, revealing how company agents participated in and made sense of foreign customs and policies. By comparing the diaries of a 1723 merchant — diplomat in Bengal, and a 1726 merchant in Canton, it will reveal similarities and differences in learning processes in both maritime trading environments. It will provide a summary of several key focuses supporting a comparative history of cultural interaction, such as performative courtly rituals, the role of informants and information on learning how to interact, and the personal reflections of European merchants. The article also demonstrates the potential for a collaborative approach, through the inclusion of comparison with older Chinese sources, in establishing a longue duree perspective on specific cultural phenomena as aspects of the learning process, such as the differing significance of clothing, or the ritual use of tea or tobacco in receiving of guests. Its focus on interaction also reveals the mediating role of Persian or Armenian merchants. Finally, the article will also stress the role of unexpected occurrences such as shipwrecks or robbery, as hazardous aspects of maritime trading environments, and the human response to occurrences on both a direct and institutional levels. Against an overtly structural approach, this reveals how human —environment interaction also contained an element of unpredictability.