BIRKBECK, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

Team Members

Dr Sunil Amrith
Principal Investigator

I am a historian of South and Southeast Asia. My research has focused on the movement of people, ideas, and institutions across the region. My most recent book is Migration and Diaspora in Modern Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2011), a concise introduction to the history of Asian migration. I am currently writing a book on the Bay of Bengal’s history, which makes the transition from my earlier research on migration to this new project on environmental history: Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants will be published by Harvard University Press in 2013. I have taught at Birkbeck since 2006, and received my undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from the University of Cambridge.

 

Dr Debojyoti Das
Post-Doctoral Research Associate

I am an anthropologist with a keen interest in South Asian borderlands, coastal and highland communities. I completed my PhD in January 2012 from the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. My PhD research looked at farming practices in Nagaland, focusing on the contrasts between local understandings of farming and the views of the state agricultural bureaucracy. My PhD was funded by a Felix Scholarship. My M.Phil research at Jawaharlal Nehru University looked at community perceptions of flood in Majuli River Island, Assam. I have contributed papers to Oxford Development Studies, Economic and Political Weekly and have contributed book chapters to edited volumes.