Ersama block in coastal Odisha, India, was devastated in the supercyclone of October 1999, an event that marked a turning point in the disaster mitigation and management approach for the state. Through research spanning over a decade, I observed how post-supercyclone Ersama has undergone significant transformation in the way its lands are imagined and used, through the introduction of a new form of shrimp aquaculture as the principal livelihood. At the heart of this imagination is a powerful notion of the landscape rendered as 'empty' and 'unproductive' by the supercyclone.

The talk will scrutinise theories on the emergence of a vernacular literary tradition in the “Hindi Belt” (Madhyadeśa) and examine the earliest extant works coming from the region. While both Hindi and Urdu have produced literary histories that extend for a millennium or more, most early claims are untenable in the light of later philological research. The talk will examine the role of Jain stories and of a primarily Jain literary idiom rooted in Apabhramsha and originating in Gujarat in setting examples for later works.

This talk asks what it takes to belong among the “cosmopolitan elite” in international society. With a reflexive sociological sensibility, it examines the ways in which the career diplomats of the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) have sought to secure recognition and equal standing in international society by inhabiting a cosmopolitan habitus. Instead of analysing cosmopolitanism in the conventional register of political theory, as an egalitarian ethic, the article considers “actually existing cosmopolitanism” as an elite aesthetic.

During the 1980s, the Indian electorate was characterized by a rise in partisan de-alignment and an increased volatility in its voting intensions. How did India’s political elites respond to the challenge posed by the changing landscape of voters? This paper explores how an approach of technologism and a recourse to political marketing emerged as the principal solutions to this problem.

This talk will look at the years 1940–42 in Bengal with a view to analyse the social fuel that made the Quit India Movement possible in the province. War-time colonial policies created multiple disruptions and intrusions in the lives of the people of Bengal, building up anxieties and mass discontent. Coupled with widespread rumours, this profoundly reconfigured the image of the colonial state. This paper attempts to tap into the psyche of colonised minds in Bengal in the early stages of the war, which began to question British invincibility in the face of serious reverses in Southeast Asia.

The imagination of the frontier as "empty" (of civilization) but "full" (of resources) not only allows for the making of a particular landscape, it also helps create and make a certain kind of subject (Bridge 2001; Eilenberg 2014; Korf et al 2013; Li 2014; Tsing 2005; Watts 1992).

This special set of joint events run by Oxford’s African Studies and South Asian Studies Centres focuses on activism and researching activism. In celebrating the global South’s rich experience of popular challenges to injustice, inequality and repression, these seminars will hear presentations from leading civic activists, speaking alongside academics who have researched political and social issues and activist challenges to them.

This special set of joint events run by Oxford’s African Studies and South Asian Studies Centres focuses on activism and researching activism. In celebrating the global South’s rich experience of popular challenges to injustice, inequality and repression, these seminars will hear presentations from leading civic activists, speaking alongside academics who have researched political and social issues and activist challenges to them.

This special set of joint events run by Oxford’s African Studies and South Asian Studies Centres focuses on activism and researching activism. In celebrating the global South’s rich experience of popular challenges to injustice, inequality and repression, these seminars will hear presentations from leading civic activists, speaking alongside academics who have researched political and social issues and activist challenges to them.