India and the Indian Ocean in the Early Decolonial Period: Archipelagic Imaginaries, 1950s-1970s

ended

The project IATIO mobilises the concept of ‘archipelagic imaginaries’ to examine Indian intellectual and literary cosmopolitanism in the Indian Ocean during the 1950s-1970s. The research shifts focus from teleological readings of Indian Ocean history and territorial perspective on postcolonial Indian culture, to a renewed investment in archipelagic theory and geocritical approaches. The temporal framework of the project ranges from around the time of the post-World War II decolonisation to the late 1970s, a period of far-reaching political, cultural and economic change for the entire Indian Ocean region. The project aims to advance a non-territorial epistemological framework for theorising postcolonial India through an investigation of the conceptual, imaginative and material Indian Ocean geographies inhabited by Indian intellectuals, writers and other cosmopolitan voices. It will do so by employing an interdisciplinary methodology that combines tools and insights from history, literary criticism and cultural studies, to engage in close reading of intellectual journals and the popular press, works of fiction, and selected case studies of material Indian Ocean sites of cosmopolitan encounters. The fellowship will be based at two leading academic institutions, King’s College London (UK) and the University of the Witwatersrand (ZA), and will take the researcher to further Asian and African countries for archival research. It will enhance the profile and the innovative potential of the researcher, strengthening his competence in interdisciplinary methods in the humanities and social sciences through personalised training, and providing the opportunity to develop a solid and internationally competitive track record. The project will also create a substantial institutional link between KCL and Wits, with KCL emerging as a UK hub in the global academic Indian Ocean studies network.