Centre for South Asian Studies

Profile

I have conducted many years of research in provincial and district archives in the subcontinent, mostly in Madhya Pradesh (the largest state in central India), and have written numerous research articles and book contributions on the social and economic history of this region, with particular reference to the peasants and adivasis or tribals who live there. My other research interests include Indian labour and labour migration, Gandhi and the Indian Independence Movement, Orientalism and colonial discourse, and the study of social, economic and political movements in contemporary India. 
In the late 1990s I was part of an Edinburgh consortium engaged in a project concerning village participation in Indian forest management, funded by the ESRC. Most recently I have been the principal investigator in a major AHRC-funded research project entitled 'Mutiny at the Margins: New Perspectives on the Indian Uprising of 1857'. I have also been the coordinator of an international network of scholars working on 1857, funded by the British Academy. For further details see www.csas.ed.ac.uk/mutiny.