COLOMBO: LAYERED HISTORIES IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH

一个由中国出资150亿美元的港口城市项目正在戏剧性地重组今天的科伦坡。然而，科伦坡有着深刻的帝国历史：它最初是一个穆斯林定居点，后来被葡萄牙(1518年第一个贸易站)、荷兰(1656-1796)和英国(1796-1948)等一系列欧洲帝国统治。这个项目询问这些外来者是如何在印度洋中心不稳定的环境中建造一座城市的，在这个环境中，出现了一个多元化的社会，产生了丰富的文化生产和一系列的暴力政治。研究的四条路径：1)在环境方面，这座多殖民地和重复工程的城市建在一个没有重要天然海港的湿地上；2)在社会方面，在一个高度民族化的国家，这座城市抵制土著，因为它由许多有着冗长起源叙述的少数民族社区居住；3)在文化方面，科伦坡被描绘为与反复出现的主题保持一致，作为穿越印度洋的一个中转地点，包括奴隶和契约劳工以及定居者；(4)在政治方面，在海陆之桥上所需的繁重工作在内战期间引发了社区之间的城市暴力；持续的罢工和新的政治运动，甚至在本划界案提交之前的几个月里也是如此。出于所有这些原因，科伦坡的过去反映了奴役、帝国、后殖民冲突和不平等的遗产；全球伊斯兰教的悠久历史；中国在印度家门口的崛起；以及环境危机。为了批判这些过去和现在的关系，该项目将把艺术家和历史学家聚集在一起，并开发一个开放获取的平台，朝着更具包容性的未来努力。通过偏离对扩散的全球北方叙事、基于民族主义的全球南方叙事，以及对帝国、港口城市或抵押劳工的狭隘描述，这将成为城市研究和城市研究的一个变革性范例。

A Chinese-financed $15 billion dollar port city project is dramatically restructuring today's Colombo. Yet, Colombo has a deeply layered imperial past: it was initially a Muslim settlement, before it came under a succession of European empires, Portuguese (first trading post in 1518), Dutch (1656-1796) and British (1796-1948). This project interrogates how these outsiders made a city in an unstable environment at the centre of the Indian Ocean, in which arose a diverse society, generating an abundance of cultural production and a sequence of violent politics. The four pathways of research: 1) In environmental terms, this multiply- colonised and repeatedly-engineered city is built in a wetland without a significant natural harbour; 2) In social terms, in a heavily nationalised state, the city has resisted indigeneity, as it is inhabited by many minority communities with long narrations of origin; 3) As for culture, Colombo was represented in keeping with recurrent motifs, as a site of transit across the Indian Ocean, including for enslaved and indentured labour as well as settlers; 4) And on politics, the heavy work needed, at the bridge of sea and land, gave rise to urban violence between communities in the midst of civil war; sustained strikes and new political movements, even in the months prior to this submission. For all these reasons, Colombo's past is a mirror to the legacies of enslavement, empires, postcolonial conflict and inequality; the long history of global Islam; the rise of China at the doorstep of India; and the environmental crisis. To critique these relations of pasts and presents, the project will bring artists together with historians and develop an open- access platform which works towards a more inclusive future. By decentring global North narratives of diffusion, global South narratives forged out of nationalism, and narrow accounts of empire, port cities or bonded labour, this will be a transformative exemplar of research on and for cities.