Regions and Migrations

Over the course of the twentieth century, regions as configurations have acquired great relevance in research, forming the foundation and focus of major studies of culture, history, society, and politics. Regional methods and approaches probe primary questions about regions at the digital turn, in the age of the anthropocene. Where lies a region? How has the idea of regions persisted despite catastrophic upheavals triggered by different modes of change? How is the imagination of a region a part of its construction and curation?

While the sub-continent witnessed the largest mass migration in history during the Partition of British India in 1947, migrations themselves create more than migrant communities, divided selves, re-imagined notions of home, belonging and cultural remaking. Migrants, as Salman Rushdie says, make the 20th century what it is. What does it mean then to make home, belong, grow roots, live in inter-generational relations and to make anew? What carries forward as political history, climate change, movements of capital, and geo-political changes remake regions? What forms of communities and communal lives are engendered in cross-border and intra-border migrations? These are questions that are addressed through multidisciplinary approaches by scholars working across different domains and using a variety of methods.

Faculty involved: Nazia Akhtar, Sushmita Banerji, Isha Dubey