The Politics of Alterity in Early Modern Global Encounters: The Safavid and French Encounters with Siam

In this project the politics of alterity as practiced by the Safavid and French diplomatic envoys to Siam in the seventeenth century is explored. The central questions of the project are: what conditions made a politics of alterity, as a knowledge formation practice, in relation to Siam by the Iranian and the French diplomatic missions possible, and how did these respective politics of alterity differ from one another?

Here, the politics of alterity is understood as a practice of knowledge formation about Others. The politics of alterity of the Iranian and the French mission is studied through an analysis of the discourses of both envoys and how within these discourses knowledge about Others and their degree of Otherness were produced. The conditions that made these knowledge formation practices possible are explored in relation to each polity’s broader power-knowledge order.

RUG investigator involved: Anahita Arian, MA

Research themes: Historical Epistemology | Modes of Reasoning | The Politics of Global Connectivities