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Unlikely Partners: Malay-Indonesian Medicine and European Plant Science

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The East India Company and the Natural World

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in World Environmental History ((PSWEH))

Abstract

The biological and strategic importance of the Malay-Indonesian region — synonymous with the biogeographical zones of Sunda and Wallacea — placed materia medica at the forefront of regional and international commerce in the pre-European era.1 It thus became the target of East India Company and imperial plant prospecting aimed at appropriating both the resources and the less tangible knowledge associated with them. I argue that, notwithstanding European political hegemony, indigenous materia medica remained autonomous and inaccessible except through avenues of social discourse and collaboration.

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Notes

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  1. Jeyamalar Kathirithamby-Wells
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for World Environmental History, University of Sussex, UK

    Vinita Damodaran (Senior Lecturer and Director) (Senior Lecturer and Director)

  2. Department of History, University of Sussex, UK

    Anna Winterbottom (Research Fellow) (Research Fellow)

  3. University of Sussex, UK

    Alan Lester (Professor of Historical Geography) (Professor of Historical Geography)

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© 2015 Jeyamalar Kathirithamby-Wells

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Kathirithamby-Wells, J. (2015). Unlikely Partners: Malay-Indonesian Medicine and European Plant Science. In: Damodaran, V., Winterbottom, A., Lester, A. (eds) The East India Company and the Natural World. Palgrave Studies in World Environmental History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137427274_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137427274_10

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-49109-4

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