Making a New Culture on the Indian Ocean Rim: the Peranakans in the Straits Settlements

Public Lecture | Updated 1 decade ago

Image copyright of Kenneth McPherson
Kenneth McPherson
Photo from Kenneth McPherson

Prof Brian Stoddart, Managing Director, Selkirk International Pty Ltd
6.00pm, Friday 17 June 2011
NWS Shipping Theatre

The Kenneth McPherson Memorial Lecture 2011
Presented in association with the Australian Association for Maritime History (AAMH)

Professor Brian Stoddart trained in Asian social history at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and at UWA. While working in Penang he became interested in Peranakans/Straits Chinese culture and especially in its porcelain of which he remains a keen collector. On the basis of that collection and the associated research Professor Stoddart, a long time friend and colleague of Kenneth McPherson from their time at UWA onwards, presents a lecture on continuity and change in the Indian Ocean Region that was the academic focus and passion of Kenneth McPherson.

Specifically, Brian Stoddart will discuss continuity and change in the Peranakan communities who descended from 15th and 16th Chinese immigrants in the Straits settlements of Malaya and Singapore. The material culture of the Peranakan, such as porcelain-ware, provides evidence of continuity through the preservation of "old" practices based on ethnic Chinese traditions, and the incorporation of "new" practices that reflect the influences of their new social environment and "new" social identity. Images of Peranakan material culture will highlight these elements of old and new practices.

The Kenneth McPherson Memorial Lecture has been inaugurated from 2011 by the Australian Association for Maritime History to commemorate the contribution of Professor Kenneth McPherson (1944-2010) to the diverse field of Indian Ocean studies. A highly regarded Western Australian scholar, Kenneth McPherson was responsible for establishing the Indian Ocean Centre for Peace Studies and its successor, the Centre for Indian Ocean Studies, at Curtin University before his appointment in 2003 as Mercator Professor at the University if Heidelberg. He is the author of the acclaimed The Indian Ocean: A History of People and the Sea (Oxford University Press), and the donor of many items to the Western Australian Maritime Museum's Indian Ocean Gallery. Future Kenneth McPherson Memorial Lectures will be presented by an eminent speaker on a topic related to the history of the Indian Ocean region.

Cost: $12 per person - Please join us for refreshments after the lecture. Bookings essential on (08) 9431 8455, RSVP by Wednesday 15 June