Food for thought for the ethnographic soul at Stadthuys, the ethnographic museum of history at Malacca’s heritage district which has a 500 year history on par with Goa. Waves of globalisation started long ago, with the Dutch VOC, the first global MNC. The resource wars over spice are well documented in the Nutmeg’s Curse, by Dr Amitav Ghosh, a successor to his Berlin Family Lectures.

Malacca is a few hours by ferry to Sumatra, and no wonder the VOC had its imprint here. The museum covered a wide aperture, from Parameshwara to 1957. The connections to India were clear and deep and makes it’s evidently clear of its importance in the region.

Reel 3 from Malacca on museums, and being wrapped by historical ether.

History is context as a risk researcher and consultant- which is often overlooked in technocratic analysis. I wish ESG consultants read more, well LLMs help but only so much.

There is a common geographical vocabulary in the straits settlements between Penang, Singapore and Melaka; Kuala Lumpur too shares the architectural grammar with the three cities. The Chinatown in Calcutta too was a part of the same entrepôt grid, as was Rangoon.

Migration is not an exception but a way of life in these cities. The digital nomads and labour migrants today are no different along a socioeconomic and passport spectrum.