Final Report Summary - WHYWOMENRULED (Why women ruled: explaining the rise and persistence of female rule in pre-colonial Southeast Asia and Madagascar) The research project 'Why women ruled: explaining the rise and persistence of female rule in pre-colonial Southeast Asia and Madagascar' (WHYWOMENRULED) was coordinated by Dr Andrée Feillard (scientist in charge) and conducted by Dr Stefan Eklöf Amirell (researcher) at the Centre Asie du Sud-Est / École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris between 1 August 2011 and 30 April 2012. Initially envisioned as a more comprehensive comparative study involving the three kingdoms of Aceh, Patani and Madagascar, all of which in the pre-colonial period experienced sustained periods of female rule involving four or more ruling queens in succession or near succession, the project was, for personal reasons, modified and shortened from 24 to 9 months. It consequently was delimited to a more focused study of the relationship between female rule and long-distance trade in the Indian Ocean World in the pre-colonial period. The first phase of the research period (from August 2011 to January 2012) focused on achieving a clear picture of the wider context of female rule and economic, social and political conditions in the Indian Ocean World in the pre-colonial period. This was done in two ways during the first phase of the research project. One was the collection and reading of key publications in the field, including both older and newer research literature and published primary sources (e.g. genealogies, chronicles and travellers' reports). Much of the literature, particularly regarding Madagascar and the wider East African region, are published in France and difficult to obtain in other European countries (particularly older and little disseminated literature). The literature on both female rule and the trade and other connections in the Indian Ocean World is quite extensive and has grown spectacularly in the last 25 years, but due mainly to the excellent library facilities available in Paris (particularly at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, BNF), the literature study phase was concluded in a relatively short period of time. In the course of the first phase of the research project, a manuscript entitled 'Progressive Nationalism and Female Rule in Post-colonial South and Southeast Asia', was also submitted to the Asian Journal of Womens Studies. It was subsequently (June 2012) accepted for publication and due to be published later in 2012. (1) The second part of the first phase focused on collecting information about the reigns of female rulers in the Indian Ocean World in the pre-colonial period. Information was gathered from the extensive five-volume reference work Regents of Nations (2nd edition, 2002 - 2004) by Peter Truhart, a very expensive and rare book series that is available at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF). In addition, information was gathered from published sources and the collected research literature. This part of the research resulted in a the most comprehensive list so far compiled or published of female rulers in the Indian Ocean World from around 1 300 to 1 900 (157 posts) as well as a database of female rule more generally in the world (containing over 2 000 reigns). The list of 157 female rulers in the Indian Ocean World was included as an appendix in the researcher's conference paper 'Queens in the Age of Commerce'. The complete database will be published in the course of 2013, either separately on the Internet or as an appendix to the researcher's planned monograph on female political leadership in world history (manuscript currently in progress). Comparing the incidence of female rule in the Indian Ocean World with other parts of the world, including Europe and East Asia (among others), showed that female rule enjoyed a much higher degree of acceptance in the former region compared with most other parts of the world. In this sense, the three polities initially chosen to be studied in depth should be seen as examples of the relatively positive attitudes toward female rule in and around the Indian Ocean as a general phenomenon. The intermediary results of the project at this stage were presented at the interdisciplinary research seminar of the Centre Asie du Sud-Est (CASE) in Paris on 15 December 2011. At the seminar several important suggestions and comments were made by senior researchers present and these were integrated in the project research during the second phase. The second and last phase of the project, from February to April 2012, focused mainly on verifying the conclusions, synthesising the information and the writing up of the results in the form of a conference paper which was presented to the Women and Gender History Network of the European Social Science History Conference in Glasgow, 11 - 14 May 2012. The paper, entitled 'Queens in the Age of Commerce: Female Rule in the Indian Ocean World, c. 1300-1900' argued, on the basis of the compiled list of the 157 female rulers in the region, against the widely held (particularly for Southeast Asia) assumption that women were supported by influential merchant-aristocrats of various pre-colonial trading city-states because of their supposedly 'mild' and 'businesslike rule' (2). This view could not be corroborated for the Western parts of the Indian Ocean - particularly not in the case of Madagascar, but neither for the neighbouring regions of the Comoro Islands and the mainland African Swahili Coast (3). Consequently, the received knowledge about female rule in Southeast Asia was also put into question and the primary source in support of the theory re-examined. It transpired that the assumption of a link between female rule and commercial orientation was based on few and ambiguous contemporary sources - mainly European accounts - and that female rule seems to have been less broadly accepted in both the eastern and western parts of the Indian Ocean during the period than previously assumed. Female rulers were accepted in the absence of suitable male claimants or successors to the throne - as they were in most European countries in the medieval and early modern era - but it was never, or very rarely, in itself seen as desirable to have a woman ruler (4). The fact that some women rulers were successful and conducted largely peaceful and trade-friendly policies that rendered them popular amongst influential merchant groups does not mean that this was a general pattern. On the contrary: it was demonstrated that at least as many women rulers, including Raja Ungu of Patani (1624-35) and Ranavalona I of Merina (Madagascar) (1828-61) conducted policies that were directly detrimental to peace, openness and commerce (5). Apart from the examination of the link between female rule and commercial orientation, the revised and extended version of the paper examined two other factors of importance for the rise of women political leaders in the Indian Ocean World: religion, kinship and gender roles. As regards the first of these, it seems that, even though the vast majority (almost 3 out of 4) of the 157 queens are assumed to have been Muslims (since they ruled over a reputedly Muslim kingdom), the societies over which they ruled are described in contemporary sources as not giving a prominent position to Islamic law and practices. And for those with a reputation for doing so, such as Aceh, female rule was opposed by the religious scholars (ulama). The apparently limited influence of strongly patriarchal religious or ideological systems on the political cultures of the polities in question is probably a significant factor that explains the frequency of female political leaders in parts of the Indian Ocean World. As regards the second factor, kinship and gender roles, the results indicated that the bilateral (and, in some cases, cognatic) descent recognised by most of the polities in question was a necessary but not sufficient factor for explaining the frequency of female rule. Bilateral descent, however, was in most parts of the region combined with a relatively high status for women and lack of seclusion or strict gendered division of labour, all of which contributed to a greater level of acceptance for female political leaders. The paper, which thus contains new and important conclusions in the field, was subsequently revised and submitted to the Journal of Global History, a widely read, A-ranked journal in the field of global history. After they have been published, the main results of the project will contribute significantly to the understanding of gender relations, political conditions and commerce in the Indian Ocean World in the pre-colonial period. The results of the project are novel and innovative because they comprise the first attempt to study gender and politics comparatively across the Indian Ocean. The project also serves as a corrective to the mainland European and (to a lesser extent) Eurasian focus for much recent scholarship on gender and politics in historical perspective. In view of this, the results can be expected to be of great interest to scholars and students in the field but also for members of the general public with an interest in broader questions of the origins of male dominance in politics and society. Not least are the project conclusions valuable against the background of the relative dearth of studies about gender and world history and the Euro- and Mediterranean-centric character of much gender history. Notes: (1) Research for the manuscript was conducted as part of the researchers previous (September 2006 - August 2011) research project 'Female Political Leadership in Contemporary Southeast Asia', financed by the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, supported by a grant from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. (2) A. Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce: Volume I (New Haven and London: Yale U.P. 1988), p. 171-172. Similar arguments have also been made by F. Bradley, 'Piracy, smuggling, and trade in the rise of Patani, 1490-1600', Journal of the Siam Society, vol. 96 (2008), p. 45 and S. Amirell, 'The Blessings and Perils of Female Rule: New Perspectives on the Reigning Queens of Patani, c. 1584-1718', Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, vol. 42, no. 2 (2011), p. 321-322. (3) None of the contemporary sources that were explored mention business-like rule or trade-friendly policies as reasons for the elevation of women to the position of ruler. Some women rulers did oversee or implement trade-friendly policies, but in this respect they did not differ from most of their male counterparts. (4) For example, Patani's succession of four ruling queens only came about after all potential male heirs had been killed in internal power struggles; Amirell (2011), p. 306-307. In Aceh, the daughter of Sultan Iskandar Muda (1607-36), Taj al-Alam, only inherited the throne after the death of her husband, Iskandar Thani (1636-41), and was then placed on the throne, originally, it seems, as a temporary compromise in order to bring an end to the power struggles and violence among the country's notables; see N. de Graaf, Voyages de Nicolas Graaf aux Indes orientales (Amsterdam: Jean-Frédéric Bernard, 1719), p. 23. (5) On Raja Ungu, see Amirell (2011), p 314-316, and on Ranavalona I, see G. Campbell, 'The Adoption of Autarky in Imperial Madagascar, 1820-1835', Journal of African History, vol. 28 (1987), pp. 395-409.
