'Malabarian' Dialogues

Abstract

This paper examines the production of knowledge about cultural difference as an interactiveprocess, emerging from a dialogue between German Pietist missionaries and local population in a South Indian region in early eighteenth century. Drawing upon sources from both sides, it analyses the respective cultural codes by which the alien was defined. How did cultural boundaries shift during a long-term interaction with elements initially viewed as the other? By looking at instances of mutual recognition and of rejection, the paper argues that the dissolution of certain notions of alterity over time did not necessarily lead to a 'synthesis of cultures'; rather responses and reactions to otherness refracted back upon an understanding of the self, often generating afresh set of questions and tensions.