Why Navigating Culture?
This exhibit was born from discourse taking place in an Indian Ocean Seminar taught by Dr. Arash Khazeni of Pomona College and the research conducted by his students.
Through visits to Special Collections at the Claremont Colleges Library, students in the seminar had the opportunity to work with primary sources that offer European accounts to countries in the Asian and Afircan continents where the Indian Ocean served as a means of transporting people and their cultures, religions, goods, and much more between borders.
The contents of these primary sources offer historical accounts, first-person narratives, and a glimpse into a past now known partially through what lies between the covers of books. These sources also provoke the reader to engage with their content critically, asking whose voices and experiences are not represented. A number of the books curated for this exhibit, along with other resources accessible in Special Collections are by indigenous authors. However, the majority of the texts available here for research offer a one-sided narrative, often couched in orientalist views and a regard for inhabitants of the Indian Ocean World as "the other."
Navigating Culture is the outcome of the ongoing efforts of Special Collections to collaborate with the Claremont Colleges community to promote the use of primary sources in producing scholarly work. This exhibit also reflects the possible outcomes of bringing together traditional and digital scholarship. Through this modern form of scholarly production, a wider community of scholars gains access to these rich resources and the discourse surrounding them is expanded.