Preacher, Trader, Soldier, Spy: Studying Transimperial Individuals through their Occupational Roles

Increased scholarly interest in ideas, goods and people that crossed the boundaries between modern empires (c. 1850-1914), known as transimperial history, has directed attention to microhistorical cases of individuals with transimperial careers. Such life trajectories are interesting in themselves, but their representativeness and broader significance for modern imperial history is often unclear. This article argues that occupational categories form a useful ‘meso-level’ of analysis between micro- and global history in the study of transimperial actors, recognizing individual agency but also larger trends. A variety of occupations, in a wide sense, led individuals to cross imperial borders, ranging from engineering to missionary work and anti-colonial activism. Individuals within these occupational groups often had similar
backgrounds and opportunities and played specific roles in the different colonial societies in which they operated. At the same time, they possessed considerable room for maneuver, with both their professional identities and nationality serving as flexible tools for self-advancement. Occupational roles allow the historian to study global imperialism without being limited by a geographical focus on one nationality or empire.