On Wednesday 5 June 2024, TRIFECTA PhD Candidate Jiaqi presented a paper at the DHBenelux 2024 in Leuven, Belgium.
Jiaqi was very excited to present her paper and be in Leuven again (she obtained her master’s degrees from KU Leuven) together with other HuC colleagues.
The TRIFECTA team also visited the Botanical Garden in Leuven and had a conference dinner at the Faculty Club. Gezellig!
Abstract:
Tracing commodities and their impact on local and global history enables researchers to study the dynamics in social, cultural, and economic relations between different parts of the world. This short paper presents a case study of the Dutch East India Company’s (VOC) opium trade by tracing the appearances of the commodity opium in the digital version of two datasets, the General Missives (GM), and the Bookkeeper-General Batavia (BKB).
In this paper, we investigate the extent to which we can trace the importance of opium to the VOC quantitatively. Our hypothesis is that analysing the mentions of opium and other commodities in the GM and the BKB will show that the interest in opium grew disproportionately over time as compared to other commodities. By highlighting time periods and data points that deviate from general trends in the VOC trade, we can aid scholars in identifying turning points in overall VOC trade. Our research question is thus: to what extent can we identify changes in opium importance to the VOC through the GM and the BKB?
Slides: