Dr Kalathmika Natarajan
Teaching Fellow in South Asian History
Contact details
Address
- Street
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Room 00M. 02, William Robertson Wing, Doorway 4, Old Medical School, Teviot Place
- City
- Post code
Availability
Office hours: Thursdays, 2-4 pm (via Teams) or by appointment.
Background
I studied Journalism in India before going on to pursue a Masters degree in International Relations at Royal Holloway, University of London and a PhD in History at the University of Copenhagen. This interdisciplinary background has shaped my interest in the intersections of caste, race, gender, and class, as central to the making and practice of Indian diplomacy.
My doctoral thesis, defended in 2019, was concerned with recovering the figure of the migrant in Indian diplomatic history. It seeks to subvert top-down accounts by putting people back into the study of diplomatic history - reimagining the ‘international’ realm as a space shaped by the journeys of South Asian migrants and the afterlives of indentured labour. In so doing, it intertwines the histories of Indian migrants traveling to colonies such as Fiji, Mauritius, British East Africa, British Guiana in the nineteenth century, with the experiences of migrants traveling to Britain after 1947.
Qualifications
BA, MSc, PhD
Undergraduate teaching
Postcolonial Indian Diplomacy (Special Subject course)
India 1700-1947: Raj, Rebellion, Ryot.
Historical Research: Skills & Sources
Historical Skills and Methods 1 and 2
History Dissertation
Postgraduate teaching
Cinema and Society in South Asia
Gender and Empire
Historical Methodology
Introduction to Contemporary History
Research summary
Places:
South Asia
Britain
Themes:
Diplomatic History
Caste
Partition
Indenture
Migration
Diaspora
Postcolonialism
Periods:
Twentieth Century & after
Current research interests
I am interested in postcolonial South Asian history, with a specific focus on critical approaches to Indian diplomatic history and international relations. Drawing on my doctoral research, I am currently interested in the intertwining of caste and race in shaping postcolonial mobility and diplomatic history. In addition to converting my thesis into a monograph, I am also working on projects that seek to address the amnesia over caste in the study of Indian diplomacy.Affiliated research centres
- Centre for the Study of Modern and Contemporary History
- Centre for South Asian Studies
- Edinburgh Centre for Global History