Introduction: Spatial Histories of Foreign Occupation and Colonialism

Abstract

colonial regimes' to be compared, few historians have been willing to step outside the disciplinary (or nation-state-defi ned) boundaries provided by subfi elds such as 'colonial history' . 1 Th is is particularly the case with relation to Asia, where the historiography rarely addresses the continuities and ruptures that have existed across the recently constructed regional boundaries of South, Southeast and east Asia ( Rafael 1999 ;Dent 2016 ;Sadan 2018 ). Asia was (and still is) a site of numerous occupation regimes. It is also a region that has long been subject to encroachment by competing colonial (and other) empires, as well as by expanding postcolonial nation-states. Th is region therefore represents a neglected point of comparison for studies of colonialism and occupation ( Sidaway et al. 2016 ) -a fact that this collection seeks to address.Th e aim of this volume is to provide a comparative and interdisciplinary history of foreign occupation and colonialism in Asia during the modern period. It does this through an examination of the ways in which diff erent spatial geographies emerged, were adapted and were transformed in the occupation context, and how occupation and colonial rule were shaped, and gave shape to, new interpretations and typologies of 'space' . A focus on 'the spatial' , this volume shows, reveals much about the nature and character of occupation and colonialism (as well as the similarities and diff erences between them). Because occupation regimes used similar methodologies and tools in an attempt to manipulate the spatial realm, a study that contrasts how diff erent spaces emerged and were transformed under occupation -whether on a national territorial level or in more localized and transnational spaces -uncovers the commonalities and diff erences that existed across borders, places and settings.To elucidate these connections, contributors to this volume examine case studies across South, Southeast and east Asia during the modern period -from the nineteenth century to the present day -using a variety of disciplinary perspectives. Th is includes thinking about 'spaces of occupation' not only in urban and architectural environments, but also in landscapes, in pathways that transgress national and political borders, in cartographic representations and, signifi cantly, in the imagination. With themed sections focused on particular spatial typologies -urban spaces, rural and inland spaces, and island and maritime spaces -the volume ultimately reveals the similarities, entanglements and points of rupture that existed between diff erent spaces of foreign occupation and colonialism in Asia, while also putting these hitherto disparate studies in dialogue with one another. In doing so, the volume shows how a focus on historical geography and space can revise broader categories and