Zanzibar Indian Ocean Research Institute

As part of its mission to disseminate research results, the Institute will organise a number of seminars and conference to define and fine-tune the research programmes, and make them available the results of the research to the international scholarly community on a regular basis. The proceedings of these conferences will be published in suitable forms. In addition, the Institute will host other relevant conferences proposed by other institutions, such as on Islamic networks in the Indian Ocean, if commissioned to do so.

Zanzibar Indian Ocean Research Institute (ZIORI)

Dialogue between Civilisations
International Conference on The Indian Ocean – the largest cultural continuum
Zanzibar, 15-17^th August, 2008.

Indian Ocean in an 11^th century Egyptian ms “Book of Curiocities”
which identifies many places in the ocean, including Unguja Ukuu & Qanbalu
in the Zanzibar archipelago. (Courtesy of the Bodleian Library)

The Indian Ocean has been described as the largest cultural continuum in the world, a privileged crossroads of culture, based on free trade, cultural accommodation, assimilation, and tolerance.

The conference is organised around three themes:

Maritime cultures & globalisation in the Indian Ocean;
Migrations & formation of new societies;
Swahili civilisation & politics of city-states & marginalisation.