| 1. |
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A Chest in the Attic
- 2019
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Artistic workabstract
- When the attic of the Huseby estate house was cleaned in 2008, a large wooden chest was found. It had not been opened since being sealed in India and shipped to Sweden in 1869. Its contents reveal a world of knowledge that changes how we understand the history of colonial India and of Småland 150 years ago, and how these histories intertwine. Joseph Stephens grows up in a British family shaped by the global transformations of the nineteenth century. Joseph was born in Stockholm and, when he is 11 years old, moved to Copenhagen where his father George, folklorist and runologist, had taken up a position at the university. In 1859, at the age of 19, Joseph leaves for Bombay. This is an important port city and a world-leading metropole of trade and finance. Here, Joseph is trained to become a civil engineer under his brother-in-law, an engineer working on one of the world’s largest infrastructure projects: the railways. In the 1860s the Great Indian Peninsula Railway Company (G.I.P.R.) was constructing the trunk lines between India’s trade metropoles, Bombay and Calcutta. The large railway network will eventually interconnect the colonial economy, transporting passengers, goods and troops across the continent. Joseph soon becomes a subcontractor and mobilises labourers and material for smaller projects. After some time he set up his own firm: Joseph Stephens & Company.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Chatterjee, Niladri, 1983-, et al.
(author)
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Politics of Vaccine Nationalism in India : Global and Domestic Implications
- 2021
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In: Forum for Development Studies. - : Routledge. - 0803-9410 .- 1891-1765. ; 48:2, s. 357-369
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The fight against the Covid-19 pandemic has shifted from finding a cure to acquiring vaccines and organizing vaccination. The race for vaccination has exacerbated tendencies of hoarding, particularly among rich countries, academically expressed as vaccine nationalism. Vaccine nationalism is harmful to the global effort in the fight against the pandemic. India in contrast has been quite generous to its neighbours in sharing vaccines pursuing its own form of vaccine nationalism. The strategy pursued by India can be read as an effort to gloss over the failures in initial pandemic management, to improve diplomatic leverage and reinforce an idiom of nationalism. Such an effort however has potentially harmful effects undermining trust in the vaccine as well as in the government. The politicization of vaccine also has counterproductive outcomes for democratic practices within the country.
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| 4. |
- Duncan, Rebecca, et al.
(author)
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The Emergency Has Already Happened
- 2023
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In: Environment and History. - : White Horse Press. - 0967-3407 .- 1752-7023. ; 29:4, s. 476-482
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Marcussen, Eleonor, 1980-
(author)
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Acts of Aid : Politics of Relief and Reconstruction in the 1934 Bihar–Nepal Earthquake
- 2022
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Book (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This socio-political history on the aftermath of the 1934 Bihar–Nepal earthquake explores disaster aid, relief, and reconstruction and the questions they give rise to about class, communities and inequality. The book traces disaster responses across the twentieth century in order to demonstrate how they were embedded in political processes transcending the event of the earthquake. Aid, relief and reconstruction mirrored political agendas and ideas that articulated both changes and continuities by the colonial state, civil society and international organisations. The impact of the earthquake and aid in its wake varied widely according to social groups, ethnicity and gender in the aftermath. By studying the effects of the earthquake on communities directly affected and society, the author argues that we can come closer to an understanding of the role political, social and cultural factors held in shaping resilience to natural disasters.
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| 7. |
- Marcussen, Eleonor, 1980-
(author)
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“And there are Political Earthquakes” : Disaster Governance, Nation Building and State Formation
- 2020
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Governance in the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster begins as the management of a crisis and lasts for a limited time. In the long aftermath, a disaster offers an opportunity to introduce new modes of governance, often in response to the failure of protection that the disaster represents. Natural disasters such as the destructive 1934 earthquake in Bihar (India) are not only disruptive and often tragic events but also the beginning of a social process of coping and rehabilitation. Historical disaster research underline how aftermaths can serve as opportunities to reorder society or reinforce the existing social order. After the devastating earthquake in 1934, numerous civil society associations organised financial aid and mobilised man-power to aid the victims of the disaster. Both the state and civil society groups consciously deployed disaster relief as a means to appease social groups of people such as the middle classes and urban residents. From the perspective of civil society organisations, politicised disaster relief became a tool for nation building and a practice in state formation. This paper argues that disaster relief and the regimes of aid laid out by the colonial state and civil society organisations represented and produced ideas of citizenship and legitimate government institutions in the aftermath of the 1934 earthquake. Disaster governance could thereby represent attempts at reinforcing or reinventing colonial subjects and citizens as well as shaping the framework of the envisioned nation state. The questioning of colonial governance in the aftermath by civil society organisations serves as a site for analysing political ideas underpinning aid, relief and reconstruction in the making of an alternative modeof governance.
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| 8. |
- Marcussen, Eleonor, 1980-
(author)
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Circulation of Knowledge, Capital, and Goods : Scandinavia and the British Empire
- 2022
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In: The Imperial Underbelly. - London : Routledge. - 9781003317227 - 9781032320922 - 9781032328928 ; , s. 135-160
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Book chapter (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This chapter builds upon histories of empires that recently have begun to explore the extent to which colonialism impacted social and economic life beyond the geopolitical boundaries of the colonizers and the colonized. This chapter takes Huseby estate in south Sweden as a case for exploring how networks and British imperial connections played an integral role in the restart of the estate’s businesses at the end of the 1860s and in the early 1870s. For the entrepreneurial spirit of Joseph Stephens, the acquisition of the estate was an economic investment made possible through larger British imperial networks and his earnings as railway contractor in India. This chapter argues that colonial capital and networks continued to shape the estate’s business connections for years to come. Sweden’s late industrialization, outward migration, and relatively unexplored commodities from the perspective of colonial markets became an opportunity for Stephens to develop businesses that to a great extent relied on his colonial networks.
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| 9. |
- Marcussen, Eleonor, 1980-
(author)
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Cooperation and Pacifism in a Colonial Context : Service Civil International and Work Camps in Bihar, 1934-1937
- 2018
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In: HerStory – Historical Scholarship between South Asia and Europe. - Heidelberg, Berlin : CrossAsia-eBooks. - 9783946742432 - 9783946742449 ; , s. 83-102
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Book chapter (peer-reviewed)abstract
- After a major earthquake in Bihar and Nepal in 1934, the Swiss peace and relief organisation Service Civil International (SCI), would for the first time set up work camps in India. This chapter examines how the work camps in Bihar materialized through an exchange of ideas, networks, and cooperation in Europe and India. While several factors conspired to elicit the idea of reconstruction camps in Bihar at that particular time, SCI would for the practical implementation of the project depend on the support of a network of people that included Indian politicians, British Quakers and members of the Indian Conciliation Group. The thoughts and agency of SCI’s founder, Pierre Ceresole serve not only as a window into the life of an internationalist and pacifist of the time, but also illustrate the importance of political networks and ideological motivation in the internationalisation of disaster relief in the 1930s. In this context, the chapter discusses the organisation and motivation behind setting up work camps in India.
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| 10. |
- Marcussen, Eleonor, 1980-
(author)
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"Dream city of the homeless" : International humanitarianism and refugees in Faridabad industrial settlement (India), 1950-1952
- 2021
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In: Sixth European Congress on World and Global History 2023: Minorities, Cultures of Integration, and Patterns of Exclusion. - : European Network in Universal and Global History (ENIUGH).
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This paper examines refugee work by Service Civil International (SCI) in Faridabad industrial settlement in 1950-1952. The postcolonial era in South Asia posed new challenges for the humanitarian organisation’s work and ideas. Having established a network of collaborators among leading Indian National Congress members in the mid-1930s, the organisation reinitiated work among refugees in Faridabad in 1950 and expanded into small-scale development work in health and infrastructure projects across South Asia in the following decades. The Faridabad industrial settlement would become the model for small-scale industrialization where SCI worked with skills and health of refugees from the N.W.F.P. Based in Switzerland, SCI had since the 1920s organised international work camps in Europe after wars and natural disasters in order to form inter-personal relations and foster reconciliation. For the SCI, the 1950s represented a shift towards development work in alignment with the goals of the independent Indian nation-state. Without the explicit aims of conflict resolution, forming inter-personal relationships remained an important feature of the organisations profile. The case of SCI sheds light on continuities and breaks in aims of emerging international humanitarianism after pre- and post-independence. The presentation first seeks to understand SCI’s motives and ideas behind the first project in post-independence India; and secondly, it analyses its cooperation with other relief organisations and the policy in the first five-year plan by the Indian planning commission.
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| 11. |
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| 12. |
- Marcussen, Eleonor, 1980-
(author)
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Explaining the 1934 Bihar-Nepal Earthquake : The Role of Science, Astrology, and “Rumours”
- 2017
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In: Historical Disaster Experiences. - Heidelberg : Springer. - 9783319491622 - 9783319491639 ; , s. 241-266
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Book chapter (peer-reviewed)abstract
- A major earthquake hit Bihar, in the northern parts of India and Nepal, on 15 January 1934. Besides causing major destruction and death, the earthquake triggered scientific discussions and popular interpretations on the causes of earthquakes. By looking at the confluence of interpretations and explanations found in “science” and “pseudo-science”, and those found in astrology and popular interpretations circulated in rumours, this article discusses the role of expert and popular discourses in interpreting a natural disaster.
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| 13. |
- Marcussen, Eleonor, 1980-
(author)
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Global infrastructure, local ecologies : colonialism, skills and materials in railway construction in the late 19th century
- 2022
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In: Nordiska historikermötet, Göteborg 8-11 augusti, 2022. ; , s. 129-129
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- With the arrival of railway construction in towns and rural areas through out western India, the environmental situation and local communities’ relations with resources and work changed during the decade of the 1860s. Not only had the railways as an infrastructure increased speed and capacity in trade; its physical presence had far-reaching effects on how local communities engaged with the environment. This paper examines the implications of colonial infrastructural expansion by asking how on the one hand environmental conditions affected constructions, and on the other, how processes of infrastructural implementation illuminate human interactions with nonhuman nature from a local perspective. With a view to debates on the diffusion of technology, knowledge and the environment, the paper aims to make a contribution to our understanding of how global technologies developed and affected social and material relations in local contexts. As the British Empire solidified its reach through the expansion of infrastructure, local environs and local communities invariably engaged with the implementation and development of technological innovations through continuous encounters and adaptations with the railway. Through these encounters and relationships, the politics of labour and professionalization and the reconfigurations of knowledge and expertise help us in understanding how historical actors constructed and perceived “the environment”. By using archival papers of engineers, contractors and sub-contractors, and official colonial records about infrastructural planning, the analysis focuses on materials, local construction sites and environmental conditions and resources, to discuss how insights into technological systems enable and deepen, sometimes even transform, understandings of past human-natural interactions.
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| 14. |
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| 15. |
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| 16. |
- Marcussen, Eleonor, 1980-
(author)
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Pacifism and colonialism : Earthquake relief in Bihar (India), 1934-37
- 2019. - 1
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In: <em>Words about Deeds</em>. - Antwerpen, Belgium; La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland : SCI International Secretariat. - 9789463965385 ; , s. 33-35
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Book chapter (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Ceresole first read about the devastating earthquake in India and Nepal in January 1934 in a small leaf-let written by Rajendra Prasad, later to become the first president of independent India in 1947. With the help of a network of British Quakers and friends of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, among them Charles Freer Andrews, Ceresole launched SCI’s first work camp outside Europe during three successive journeys to India. In the worst affected earthquake area SCI cooperated with the Indian National Congress and the local colonial government in resettling villages threatened by floods after the earthquake. Ceresole noted several problems with introducing SCI’s ideas, but overall regarded the project a success.
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| 17. |
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| 18. |
- Marcussen, Eleonor, 1980-
(author)
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Representations of Disaster Victimhood : Framing suffering and loss after the 1934 Bihar-Nepal Earthquake
- 2023
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In: Modern Asian Studies. - : Cambridge University Press. - 0026-749X .- 1469-8099. ; 57:2, s. 613-648
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This article seeks to address a thematic thread that remains relatively less explored in historical disaster research – victimhood – through an analysis of publications by disaster relief funds and their supporters in the aftermath of the 1934 earthquake in Bihar in northern India. By examining the representations of victimhood, I aim to explore the historical significance of perceptions and constructions of victimhood in the late colonial period. Based on photographs, illustrations, and descriptions of suffering in images and texts, the article suggests that constructions of victimhood effectively relied on an imagery that contained, on the one hand, an absence of bodies, and on the other, a feminised anthropomorphization of suffering. The narratives underlying such depictions of earthquake victims are based on a constitution of victimhood that relied on contemporary historical and culturally founded imageries. The analysis of images and texts focuses on how representation of disaster victims effectively communicated suffering to audiences. I tentatively argue that historically and culturally founded tropes of what a victim constituted formed along two narratives of victimhood that appealed to a colonial and a nationalist readership respectively. These conceptualisations of victimhood formed the basis for collecting aid towards relief and reconstruction, rather than the loss of life, dispossession, social marginalisation, and displacement suffered by victims of the earthquake.
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| 19. |
- Marcussen, Eleonor, 1980-
(author)
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Socio-ecological Webs of Railways : Infrastructure Transitions and Change in Western India
- 2023
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The aim of this paper is to discuss how new infrastructure interacts with human and non-human nature in local sites through in-depth historical research from western India during the 1860s and 1870s. The environmental implications of railway construction in colonial South Asia have foremost been raised in connection with deforestation and forest management practices. The arrival of railway construction in towns and rural areas throughout western India changed the environmental situation and local communities’ relations with resources and work during the decade of the 1860s, especially with the increased demand for cotton during the American Civil War. As previous research outlines, the railways fulfilled its purpose in enabling large-scale resource extraction through increased speed and capacity in trade, which changed human interaction with land and livelihoods. Against these larger transformations in land use, labour demands and resource extraction, this paper examines the social life of infrastructure in local sites through archival sources that document constructions, livelihoods, the work and perceptions of engineers, and contributions of workers along the railways. The planning and construction of railways and ancillary infrastructure such as roads, buildings, drainages and other sanitary facilities, were documented by engineers, colonial administrators and contractors in reports, photographs, memoranda, correspondence, diaries and accounts, where local societies and individuals feature in their everyday interaction with the railway. The paper highlights how the railways’ physical presence in the landscape changed social and spatial relations in terms of how societies related to local uses of resources, their interaction with land and livelihoods.
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| 20. |
- Marcussen, Eleonor, 1980-
(author)
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Sverige, Indien och det brittiska imperiet i Joseph Stephens arkiv
- 2019
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Eleonor Marcussen (forskare, Linnéuniversitetet) granskar dokument i det relativt nyligen funna Joseph Stephens arkiv, som nu är en del av Husebyarkiven i Linnéuniversietetets samlingar. JSA som har en unik samling dokument från 1860-talets Indien hittades i en trälåda när godsets vind städades 2008. Godsägaren Joseph Stephens kunde köpa Huseby bruk 1867 med den förmögenhet han samlade som underentreprenör under tio år inom det stora koloniala järnvägsbygget i Indien. Dokumenten fanns i hans bagage från Indien. Han hörde till den ganska stora grupp tyskar, danskar och engelsmän som köpte mark och gårdar i Småland som emigranterna lämnade bakom sig under det sena 1800-talet. Genom sin kompletta karaktär ger arkivet en unik inblick i lokala arbetsförhållanden i Indien och möjliggör en ny tolkning av Smålands modernisering i ljuset av global rörlighet, det brittiska imperiet och indisk kolonialhistoria.
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| 21. |
- Marcussen, Eleonor, 1980-
(author)
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Town Planning after the 1934 Bihar-Nepal Earthquake : Earthquake-safety, colonial improvements and the restructuring of urban space in Bihar
- 2017
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In: Studies in Nepali History and Society. - Kathmandu, Nepal : Mandala Book Point. - 1025-5109. ; 22:2, s. 321-354
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This article addresses urban reconstruction in Bihar after the 1934 Bihar-Nepal earthquake by arguing that the aftermath became an opportunity for the local government to implement town planning according to ideas of urban improvements guiding sanitation, engineering and control of spaces since the late nineteenth century in colonial India. While earthquake safety surfaced as a central aim of town planning, the local government used the reconstruction phase to improve sanitation facilities, widen roads and restructure plots in bazaars of the three worst affected towns—Monghyr, Darbhanga and Muzaffarpur. Arguably, sanitation engineering with more spaced and simpler structures in effect meant buildings less likely to kill people in future earthquakes. Congestion and overpopulation were blamed for the many deaths in the bazaars but the same factors were also seen as the major cause of “insanitary” conditions according to town planners and the government officials incharge of the planning process. Wider roads and lanes, and more sparsely populated areas and lower houses were measures likely to prevent deaths on the same scale in case an earthquake visited again.
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| 22. |
- Marcussen, Eleonor, 1980-
(author)
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Transformations of the political in the life of Pierre Ceresole : Religion, humanitarian thought and decolonization, c. 1918-1945
- 2020
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This paper seeks to discuss the influence of South Asian decolonisation movements on European pacifism in the interwar period through the work and ideas of Pierre Ceresole (17/08/1879 – 23/10/1945), a Swiss internationalist and pacifist. In exploring how his ideas about pacifism evolved in relation to World War I and its aftermath, this paper argues that anti-colonial nationalism and decolonisation movements played a crucial role in shaping his pacifist methods and networks. The paper seeks to link two strands of historical research: first, the role of religion and spirituality in humanitarianism, and second, how activities that went against dominant discourses of nationalism, colonialism and ideologies of violence were shaped by interaction between civil society groups in transnational thought zones throughout the first half of the twentieth century.
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| 23. |
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