SOAS’s Brunei Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition by Pragya Dhital of DIY and decolonial print and the simple duplication technology used to produce it, with focus on the ‘Gestetner’ stencil duplicator. Stencil duplicating involves copies being made from a cut-out, patterned or lettered sheet (a stencil), through which paint or ink is applied onto paper. Originally intended for bureaucratic purposes, it was one of a series of Victorian-era
by Sanjukta Ghosh SSAI Sanglaap’s webinar A Game of Power: West Bengal Assembly Elections, was held with eight speakers in two related panel discussions before the result was declared this week. The Indian State of Bengal located in the vulnerable ‘borderland’ region of South Asia, is a hotspot for communal tensions and violence following the legacy of Partition and Decolonisation. Violence was building up ahead of the high-octane eight-phase West
Farzana Whitfield is the subject librarian for South Asia and Development Studies at SOAS. Here she looks back on her family’s personal experience and memories of Partition. This article has previously appeared on SOAS’s library blog. This August marks 70 years of India’s independence from British rule (15th August) giving birth to 2 nations- a Hindu majority India and a Muslim majority Pakistan (14th August). Subsequently there were 3 wars between
Simona Vittorini is a Senior Teaching Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Studies where she lectures undergraduate and postgraduate courses on the comparative politics of Asia and Africa. A diplomatic crisis was narrowly averted last week in Delhi when the African Heads of Missions finally agreed to participate in the Africa Day celebrations organised by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) in New Delhi. A few days
Alessandra Mezzadri is lecturer in Development Studies at SOAS, University of London. Her research interests focus on globalisation and processes of labour informalisation; materialist and feminist approaches to global commodity chains and global industrial systems; labour regimes, labour standards and CSR; gender and globalisation; and the political economy of India. Three years after Rana Plaza, garment workers worldwide still endure poor working conditions. The industry has witnessed several ‘minor’ disasters
David Mosse is Professor of Social Anthropology and Head of the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at SOAS. His research combines interests in the anthropology of development and activism, environmental history and natural resources management, in the anthropology of Christianity, South Asian society and popular religion. Professor David Mosse was invited to give a number of speeches for the celebration of the 125th birth anniversary of Dr Ambedkar in Nagpur on
A SOAS Exhibition organized in collaboration with the British Library, National Museum of Iran and UNESCO Parzor Foundation, Delhi The Everlasting Flame Exhibition, which is currently ongoing at the National Museum in New Delhi, was inaugurated on 19 March 2016. The exhibition was originally produced by SOAS, University of London, in 2013. In 2016, to mark SOAS’ centenary year celebrations, the exhibition has been taken to Delhi. Dr. Najma Heptulla, Hon’ble Minister for Minority
On February 4 and 5, 2016, SOAS South Asia Institute was thrilled to host director Gurvinder Singh and screen two of his films: Anhey Ghorhey Da Daan (Alms for the Blind Horse) and Chauthi Koot (The Fourth Direction). In this blog post, Navtej Purewal transcribes some of the post-film discussion between Gurvinder and Derek Malcolm, former Chief Film Critic of the Guardian and director of the London Film Festival, after
The conference “The Future of the Rural World? Africa and Asia” was hosted by SOAS, University of London during October 2015. The event marked the end of a major project funded by the United Kingdom’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) on “restudying” village India. It also coincided with the launch of an exhibition and film installations at the Brunei Gallery at SOAS, which emerged from the same project. At
The celebration of Bengali history in East End conjures up a picture different to how we imagine the community gleaned from the pages of a widely read fiction Monica Ali’s Brick Lane, where the nostalgic memory of Bangladesh’s paddy fields fuses with life’s chores in the East End. Amidst the iconic curry houses marking out the generation of food entrepreneurship and labour of Britain’s Bangladeshi community, the streets near the