Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - The Itineraries of Geography
T2 - Jan Huygen van Linschoten's Itinerario and Dutch Expeditions to the Indian Ocean, 1594-1602
AU - Saldanha, Arun
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - Jan Huygen van Linschoten's 1596 Itinerario, published in Amsterdam just before Dutch world hegemony, opened the Indian Ocean world for the European geographical imagination, especially regarding its spice markets and non-Christian cultures. Linschoten confirmed rumors in Europe that the Portuguese Estado da India had become decadent and unstable, especially in its capital Goa. He also mentioned the absence of Portuguese control in the market of Bantam, which would become the capital of Dutch Indonesia. In addition, the book disclosed nautical and economic information about the Indian Ocean until then carefully guarded by the Portuguese, especially about the Spice Islands. In fact, the book's navigational section was published early so it could be on board the so-called First Voyage organized by the Dutch. This article discusses the main features that made the cartographic, cultural, and economic information of the Itinerario crucial to this historical expedition. Historicizing the discipline of geography is indispensable for understanding how travel and technology affect what can be known of the planet. Following Foucault's understanding of the production of knowledge, the central argument is that the Itinerario inaugurated a leap in the Dutch geographical “episteme” and a new struggle for the Indian Ocean. Linschoten's humanist scholarship was from the start a multiplicity of knowledges and voices that could be read and used in many ways.
AB - Jan Huygen van Linschoten's 1596 Itinerario, published in Amsterdam just before Dutch world hegemony, opened the Indian Ocean world for the European geographical imagination, especially regarding its spice markets and non-Christian cultures. Linschoten confirmed rumors in Europe that the Portuguese Estado da India had become decadent and unstable, especially in its capital Goa. He also mentioned the absence of Portuguese control in the market of Bantam, which would become the capital of Dutch Indonesia. In addition, the book disclosed nautical and economic information about the Indian Ocean until then carefully guarded by the Portuguese, especially about the Spice Islands. In fact, the book's navigational section was published early so it could be on board the so-called First Voyage organized by the Dutch. This article discusses the main features that made the cartographic, cultural, and economic information of the Itinerario crucial to this historical expedition. Historicizing the discipline of geography is indispensable for understanding how travel and technology affect what can be known of the planet. Following Foucault's understanding of the production of knowledge, the central argument is that the Itinerario inaugurated a leap in the Dutch geographical “episteme” and a new struggle for the Indian Ocean. Linschoten's humanist scholarship was from the start a multiplicity of knowledges and voices that could be read and used in many ways.
KW - Dutch colonialism
KW - epistemology
KW - history of geography
KW - Indian Ocean
KW - travel writing
U2 - 10.1080/00045608.2010.520227
DO - 10.1080/00045608.2010.520227
M3 - Journal article
VL - 101
SP - 149
EP - 177
JO - Annals of the Association of American Geographers
JF - Annals of the Association of American Geographers
SN - 0004-5608
IS - 1
ER -