Project information
Project manager
Malin Gregersen
Timetable
1 Jan 2023–31 Dec 2024
Subject
History
More about the project
This pilot project investigates the role of transoceanic travels in shaping colonial ideas and knowledge in the early 20th century. These travels led to the encounters between people with different experiences of interactions with, dependences on and involvement in imperialism and colonial projects. The project focuses on these encounters and how understandings and knowledge were affected, transferred and transformed in and by the encounter. It analyses the accounts of Swedish passengers, exploring the transfer and negotiation of ideas and knowledge between passengers and crew.
By mapping travels and analyzing narratives from these journeys, the project aims at increasing our understanding of processes of change when knowledge and attitudes were negotiated onboard. The study argues that these journeys were more than mere transportation; they were transformative spaces where passengers could redefine their beliefs. Thus, narratives from these transits also become interesting as travel writing.
The project maps travels carried out by missionaries of the Church of Sweden mission and the Swedish Mission Covenant to and from Colombo and Shanghai between 1900 and 1930 – and analyses letters and other texts from a selection of these travels.
The project is part of the research in Linnaeus University Centre for Concurrences in Colonial and Postcolonial Studies
