Subproject 1: South / east asia
Dr. Kaori Abe: Orientalist attitudes vs. local norms. The diffusion and reception of insurance in Asia (1870–1970)
Subproject 1 examines the difficult diffusion of insurance in a number of countries in South, South-East and East Asia from the late nineteenth century to the end of the 1960s. The period covers contrasting phases in world history, namely the first era of the global economy, marked by imperialism and the operation of the international gold standard before the First World War, and the subsequent era of de-globalisation, economic nationalism, war and decolonisation which characterised the period from the 1920s to the 1960s.
Today, Asia plays an important role in the global insurance industry, accounting for 28% of world insurance premiums. Yet, the Asian experience of insurance diffusion has been enormously diverse. While in advanced Asian economies, insurance premiums account for over 11% of GDP, in emerging economies, such as Malaysia and Indonesia, this ratio is below three per cent. This great heterogeneity in Asian insurance history offers exciting possibilities for cross-country comparisons within this subproject, as well as with the different regions examined by the other subprojects. Although many of these countries in this region were subject to the forces of formal and informal imperialism and decolonisation, their economies and insurance markets developed at different rates. Everywhere, Western insurers were faced not just with the logistical challenges posed by underwriting over long distances, but also with the challenge of doing business in different, often poorly understood cultures and political and legal environments, trying to sell insurance to peoples with very different concepts of risk and uncertainty as well as alien methods of collective protection and risk prevention.
The spread of Western insurance in Asian markets, however, remains almost completely unexplored. Among Asian countries only Japan has a substantial body of historical research on its insurance industry, but even there, the activities of foreign insurers have been largely neglected. Subproject 3 therefore aims to identify, assess and explain the obstacles that Western insurance companies faced in Asia, and their strategies for overcoming these. It also analyses differing popular attitudes to risk and uncertainty among local populations in Asia, and different modes of risk pooling and risk prevention. By examining different parts of Asia, we are able to compare the history of insurance diffusion and reception under very different political and economic conditions.
One important task of this subproject will be to try to examine the responses of indigenous populations, states and private organisations in Asia to the advent of Western forms of insurance and Western notions of risk. To do this a twin track approach will be adopted. First, a search will be made for surviving records of indigenous insurance companies and underwriters that competed or reinsured with Western insurers and that adapted to or adopted Western insurance technologies and business practices. Second, assistance will be sought from scholars working in other disciplines such as social anthropology and cultural studies who carry out research on risk, risk prevention and related subjects in Asian countries. We also hope that the cross-disciplinary work may open up for other Asian regions to be examined in this subproject.