2021
Mukherjee, Souvik
‘Unburying’ Company History: Reconstructing European Company Narratives Through Digital Cemetery Archives Book Section
In: Brock, Aske Laursen; van Meersbergen, Guido; Smith, Edmond (Ed.): Trading Companies and Travel Knowledge in the Early Modern World, Routledge, 2021, ISBN: 9781003195573.
Abstract | Links | Tags: Archives, Colonial history, Digital humanities, Travel narratives
@incollection{Mukherjee2021d,
title = {‘Unburying’ Company History: Reconstructing European Company Narratives Through Digital Cemetery Archives},
author = {Souvik Mukherjee},
editor = {Aske Laursen Brock and Guido van Meersbergen and Edmond Smith},
url = {https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003195573-12/unburying-company-history-souvik-mukherjee?context=ubx&refId=b6934cee-9802-4c88-b9f2-e0192ee7c7b3},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003195573},
isbn = {9781003195573},
year = {2021},
date = {2021-10-29},
urldate = {2021-10-29},
booktitle = {Trading Companies and Travel Knowledge in the Early Modern World},
publisher = {Routledge},
abstract = {This chapter addresses how Digital Humanities tools can contribute to conserving and re-assessing colonial history. It explores the colonial cemetery as an archive within the contexts of narratives of travel and also in the larger context of memory studies. The digital cemetery archive, constructed following methodologies drawn from the comparatively new discipline of Digital Humanities, will be seen as using the framework of advanced search algorithms and software bringing to light hitherto neglected connections and, as it were, ‘unburying’ Company history. Nevertheless, logistical problems, costs, and the sheer temporal distance of modern-day Chuchura from the era of the painting of Fort Gustavus in the Rijksmuseum prove to be major roadblocks to any projects of restoration or conservation. The cemetery thus becomes the site of exchange and connections in the early history of colonialism. Mortality rates of Europeans visiting the tropics were very high, particularly due to epidemics of cholera and the general insalubriousness of the climate.},
keywords = {Archives, Colonial history, Digital humanities, Travel narratives},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {incollection}
}
This chapter addresses how Digital Humanities tools can contribute to conserving and re-assessing colonial history. It explores the colonial cemetery as an archive within the contexts of narratives of travel and also in the larger context of memory studies. The digital cemetery archive, constructed following methodologies drawn from the comparatively new discipline of Digital Humanities, will be seen as using the framework of advanced search algorithms and software bringing to light hitherto neglected connections and, as it were, ‘unburying’ Company history. Nevertheless, logistical problems, costs, and the sheer temporal distance of modern-day Chuchura from the era of the painting of Fort Gustavus in the Rijksmuseum prove to be major roadblocks to any projects of restoration or conservation. The cemetery thus becomes the site of exchange and connections in the early history of colonialism. Mortality rates of Europeans visiting the tropics were very high, particularly due to epidemics of cholera and the general insalubriousness of the climate.