Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS

The Asian Origins of Global Capitalism: European Factories in the Indian Ocean, 1500-1800

Project description

Tracing global capitalist change to the pre-modern European factories in Asia

The modern factory owes its name to the Asian trading ports in the Indian Ocean that served as hubs for global trade and flourished economically during the period 1500-1800. They were run by company servants called ‘factors’ and were places where commodities for intercontinental trade were gathered, stored and shipped. The EU-funded CAPASIA project will explore the origin, development, activities and connections of over 150 small and large factories controlled by the Portuguese, Dutch, English, French and other European East India companies. It will study what kind of economic activities were performed at these factories and how the European and local merchants interacted within this connected factory system.

Objective

In the present age of de-industrialisation of the West, the origins and evolution of global capitalism matters. CAPASIA locates the origins of modern industrial capitalism in the space of Asian ports in the Indian Ocean, where the Portuguese, as well as the Dutch, English, French, and other European East India companies operated in the early modern period (1500-1800). Well before the rise of 20th-century Special Economic Zones and world financial centres, the ports of maritime Asia (‘factories’) were areas of global trade and hubs of economic dynamism. Today ‘factories’ are places of industrial production, but they owe their name to these pre-modern Asian trading ports, European-controlled trade hubs headed by company servants called ‘factors’. Factories were places where commodities for intercontinental trade were assembled, stored and shipped. This project investigates the genesis, evolution, activities, and connections of over 150 small and large such factories as the foundation for a new spatial theory of capitalist development — complementing and challenging the current Atlantic plantation-based explanations proposed by the New History of Capitalism. CAPASIA’s integration of the large archival repositories of the different European East India companies and Asian archives will also be the basis for the ‘decolonization’ of the history of capitalism. Over its five-year duration, this project will ask: what kind of economic activities were carried out in these imperial trading centres? What were the interactive roles of European and local merchants? It will map the intercontinental movement of goods, people and information across an ‘archipelago’ of Asian ports. Working with collaborators from across the globe, CAPASIA’s overarching ambition is to recast the narrative of global economic change and capitalism by incorporating both Asian and European economic actors, and their interactions, in the space of the still unstudied factories of the Indian Ocean.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants

See all projects funded under this funding scheme

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) ERC-2021-ADG

See all projects funded under this call

Host institution

EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 2 368 600,00
Address
VIA DEI ROCCETTINI 9
50014 Fiesole
Italy

See on map

Region
Centro (IT) Toscana Firenze
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 2 368 600,00

Beneficiaries (1)

My booklet 0 0