Dr Kalathmika Natarajan

Teaching Fellow in South Asian History

Contact details

Address

Street

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.

Biography

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
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