Contemporary South Asia Journal
@csajournal.bsky.social
South Asia is internally diverse and part of global flows of people, goods and ideas. Contemporary South Asia seeks to address the issues of the region by presenting research and analysis which is both cross-regional and multi-disciplinary.
📚 Academic publishing at #BASAS2026! At #BASAS2026 at @southasiainstitute.bsky.social, CSA Editor-in-Chief Thomas Chambers and Associate Publisher Meg Ison (Taylor & Francis) joined a panel on what makes a strong submission, how to position research for publication and how to navigate peer review.
📢 The latest issue of CSA is now available online! 📚 Volume 34.3 explores nationalism and democracy, caste and social relations, borders and statelessness, and urban and environmental change across South Asia www.tandfonline.com/toc/ccsa20/3...
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📚 Archive Article of the Week What does reconciliation look like beyond the state? Kanchana N. Ruwanpura examines how capital and labour shape the politics of reconciliation in post-war Sri Lanka. Read the article: doi.org/10.1080/0958...
Post-war Sri Lanka: state, capital and labour, and the politics of reconciliation
Sri Lanka has been through vicissitudes of change in the past three decades and its current political order gives the impression of the possibility for a different vision for Sri Lanka. Yet in orde...
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CSA Editor-in-Chief Dr Thomas Chambers joined a panel at #BASAS2026 to showcase the work of the CSA Podcast since its launch earlier this year 🎧 Listen to the podcast on all major streaming platforms! rss.com/podcasts/con...
Contemporary South Asia Podcast | Podcast on RSS.com
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🔥 From the CSA archive – and trending again Published in 2020, 'A new party system or a new political system?' by Christophe Jaffrelot & Gilles Verniers asks whether India's political transformation represents more than a change in party politics doi.org/10.1080/0958...
A new party system or a new political system?
Defying many odds, the BJP has held on to the political space it conquered five years ago and succeeded in expanding its territorial imprint. It did so through a campaign that was substantially dif...
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🌊 What can the sea tell us about power, marginality and life in the Sundarbans? In this recently published article, Sneha Roy offers an anthropological understanding of the sea, subalternity and the Sundarbans. 📖 Read the article: doi.org/10.1080/0958...
An anthropological understanding of the sea, subalternity, and the Sundarbans
This study contends that maritime communities are uniquely positioned to inform and challenge our notions and subjectivities about the sea, seascapes and subalternity that are characterised by the ...
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*Currently trending in CSA* What happens when the destruction of a home becomes a form of punishment? Fahad Zuberi examines 'bulldozer justice' in India, exploring how the demolition of homes can operate as a punitive practice: doi.org/10.1080/0958...
Punitive domicide: bulldozer justice and punishment in India
This paper reads the April 2022 Jahangirpuri demolitions as a brutal act of domicide: the deliberate destruction of home as punishment, humiliation, and political theatre. It argues that “bulldozer...
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*Archive article of the week* Jonathan Goodhand, Oliver Walton, Jayanta Rai & Sujeet Karn (2021), 'Marginal gains: borderland dynamics, political settlements, and shifting centre-periphery relations in post-war Nepal' www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Marginal gains: borderland dynamics, political settlements, and shifting centre-periphery relations in post-war Nepal
In post-war transitions, how do centre-periphery relations change, and what is the role of actors at the margins of the state in negotiating these changes? This article explores these questions by ...
tandfonline.com
*Currently trending in CSA* @jaffrelot.bsky.social's introduction to the BASAS 2024 Conference Special Section: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Introduction – new forms of anti-Muslim violence in India: Hindu Xenophobia in the post-instrumental Era
Violence between Hindus and Muslims in India has traditionally taken a single form – the riot. The interpretation of this phenomenon has changed over time. First, it was marked by ‘primordialism,’ ...
tandfonline.com
doi.org/10.1080/0958... (open access link) Work is finally seeing the sunlight. Thank you @csajournal.bsky.social Please please share with your circles yarra
Issue 34.2 is now available online! This issue includes the BASAS 2024 conference special section, 'Muslim Indians as Second Class Citizens': www.tandfonline.com/toc/ccsa20/3...
Contemporary South Asia
Volume 34, Issue 2 of Contemporary South Asia
tandfonline.com
We are very please to introduce episode 7 of the Contemporary South Asia Podcast. This is a Special Episode featuring eight invited panellists titled (Re)Claiming Space for Academic Freedom in South Asia. rss.com/podcasts/con...
Special Episode - (Re)Claiming Space for Academic Freedom in South Asia | Podcast Episode on RSS.com
Academic freedom across South Asia is under growing pressure, narrowing the spaces in which scholars, students, and public intellectuals can research, teach, debate, and speak openly. Universities, re...
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*Archive article of the week* Shahid Ali (2020), 'The specter of hate and intolerance: sectarian-jihadi nexus and the persecution of Hazara Shia community in Pakistan' www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
The specter of hate and intolerance: sectarian-jihadi nexus and the persecution of Hazara Shia community in Pakistan
Islam is the key character of Pakistan’s national identity, but ironically, it has also become a tool used by different sectarian/jihadi outfits to perpetrate violence against different religious m...
tandfonline.com
We assembled a set of previously published articles bannered as 'Bangladesh Beyond 50'. tandfonline.com/journals/ccs... Also, on the student protests, this article is just out: tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Bangladesh Beyond 50
Explore the article collection: Bangladesh Beyond 50. Published in Contemporary South Asia.
tandfonline.com
Thanks @jaffrelot.bsky.social for the introduction to the special section 'New forms of anti-Muslim violence in India' and to the section authors. Article links here: tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....; tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....; tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....; tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Perseverance mechanisms of minority upper-middle-classes
How do the upper-middle classes persevere when facing marginalisation? This study qualitatively analyses the various reactions of upper-middle-class Muslim professionals in Mumbai in the backdrop o...
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(Re)Claiming Space for Academic Freedom in South Asia 📆 16 June 2026 📍 Oxford Brookes University ⌚️ 9:00 – 11:30am (BST) Register here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/reclaiming...
(Re)Claiming Space for Academic Freedom in South Asia
Academic freedom across South Asia is under growing pressure. How can space be claimed and reclaimed for academic freedom?
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Derrida’s #hauntology and Avery Gordon’s #InfrastructuralHaunting help me understand the nullah as infrastructure through which unresolved histories, rumours, and trauma become socially present. Thanks @csajournal.bsky.social, @americananthro.bsky.social, #BASAS for reviews+feedback.
Phantoms of the drains: imaginations of conflict in everyday infrastructures
This article traces how the network of ordinary municipal drains (nullahs) in Northeast Delhi became a ‘trauma trove’ in the aftermath of the 2020 Delhi pogrom. Drawing on three years of sensory et...
doi.org
Thanks, @jaffrelot.bsky.social, for this brilliant introduction to the #BASAS @csajournal.bsky.social Special Issue: New Forms of Anti-Muslim Violence in India: Hindu Xenophobia in the Post-Instrumental Era. Introduction link: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Introduction – new forms of anti-Muslim violence in India: Hindu Xenophobia in the post-instrumental Era
Violence between Hindus and Muslims in India has traditionally taken a single form – the riot. The interpretation of this phenomenon has changed over time. First, it was marked by ‘primordialism,’ ...
tandfonline.com
*Archive article of the week* Ayesha Ansari & Thomas Chambers (2022), 'Gendering the everyday state: Muslim women, claim-making & brokerage in India' www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Gendering the everyday state: Muslim women, claim-making & brokerage in India
This ethnographic article focuses on interactions between poor Muslim women, various intermediaries/brokers, and the Indian state. The article illustrates the complexities of claim-making and the f...
tandfonline.com
*Archive article of the week* Nils‐Axel Mörner (2004), 'The Maldives project: a future free from sea‐level flooding' www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...
The Maldives project: a future free from sea‐level flooding
In a common greenhouse global‐warming scenario, the Maldives have been condemned to become flooded in 50 years or, at the most, 100 years. However, our study of past and present sea‐level changes s...
tandfonline.com
*Archive article of the week* Sonam Chuki & Mark Turner (2017), 'Women and politics in democratic transitions: the case of Bhutan' www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Women and politics in democratic transitions: the case of Bhutan
This article addresses the question of what happens to women in democratic transitions. Of particular concern is whether women are encouraged to participate in politics and to stand as candidates f...
tandfonline.com
*CSA Podcast – Episode 6* This episode features a conversation with Dr Chandan Bose, exploring the intersections of migration, labour, and aspiration within the urban handicraft economy of contemporary India. Listen on all major streaming platforms! rss.com/podcasts/con...
Dr Chandan Bose - Sustaining craft markets in urban India: a case study of Shilparamam, Hyderabad | Podcast Episode on RSS.com
This episode explores the intersections of migration, labour, and aspiration within the urban handicraft economy of contemporary India through an ethnographic study of Shilparamam, an artisanal market...
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*Archive article of the week* Mohammad Mozahidul Islam, Niladri Chatterjee & Muhammad Asiful Basar (2023), 'The final straw? Bhola cyclone, 1970 election, disaster politics, and the making of Bangladesh' www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
The final straw? Bhola cyclone, 1970 election, disaster politics, and the making of Bangladesh
The article explores the impact of one of the deadliest disasters in the twentieth century, the East Pakistan cyclone of 1970, also known as the Great Bhola Cyclone, on the first-ever general elect...
tandfonline.com
*Archive article of the week* Ayesha Siddiqi (2017), "'Disaster citizenship": an emerging framework for understanding the depth of digital citizenship in Pakistan' doi.org/10.1080/0958...
‘Disaster citizenship’: an emerging framework for understanding the depth of digital citizenship in Pakistan
In recent years, the Pakistani state has made significant advances in formalising and universalising citizenship through the digitisation of citizenship numbers. The National Database and Registrat...
doi.org
Grateful to the editors and reviewers at @csajournal.bsky.social for a thoughtful and rigorous peer review.
*Archive article of the week* Anweshaa Ghosh & Deepta Chopra (2019), 'Paid work, unpaid care work and women’s empowerment in Nepal' doi.org/10.1080/0958...
Paid work, unpaid care work and women's empowerment in Nepal
Employment and work surveys in Nepal have shown a high concentration of women in certain occupations, being flexible, low paid and requiring low skill. In the far-western region (Jumla District, Ka...
doi.org
*Available now: Episode 5 of the CSA Podcast* We discuss Dr Mudassar Munir's article, 'The state through intermediaries: Dhara Bandi, mediation, and the politics of survival in Punjab, Pakistan' Listen on all major streaming platforms! rss.com/podcasts/con...
Dr Mudassar Munir - The state through intermediaries: Dhara Bandi, mediation,and the politics of survival in Punjab, Pakistan | Podcast Episode on RSS.com
Across rural Punjab, formal state institutions are often experienced as distant, opaque, and unreliable. In this context, intermediaries occupy central roles in the everyday political and social life ...
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In my new article, I examine Delhi’s drains as “haunted infrastructures” of violence. Through sensory ethnography, I explore how everyday spaces come to hold memory, rumor, and anticipation of conflict, shaping how violence is lived, remembered, and imagined over time. #OpenAccess: bit.ly/4NulLaH
Phantoms of the drains: imaginations of conflict in everyday infrastructures
This article traces how the network of ordinary municipal drains (nullahs) in Northeast Delhi became a ‘trauma trove’ in the aftermath of the 2020 Delhi pogrom. Drawing on three years of sensory et...
bit.ly
*Archive article of the week* Carolina Holgersson Ivarsson (2018), 'Lion’s blood: social media, everyday nationalism and anti-Muslim mobilisation among Sinhala-Buddhist youth' www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Lion’s blood: social media, everyday nationalism and anti-Muslim mobilisation among Sinhala-Buddhist youth
Sri Lanka has recently seen an upsurge in aggression towards ethnic minorities, and Muslims in particular, by newly formed extremist Sinhala-Buddhist nationalist groups. The politicisation of Buddh...
tandfonline.com
*Episode 4 of the CSA Podcast is now available* We discuss Dr Dhaneswar Bhoi's study examining the daily social realities and emotive experiences faced by Dalit university students. Listen on all major streaming platforms! rss.com/podcasts/con...
Dr Dhaneswar Bhoi - Caste, mental health and self-harm: emotive experiences of Dalit students at the Indian University | Podcast Episode on RSS.com
We discuss Dhaneswar's study examining the daily social realities and emotive experiences faced by Dalit university students. The study analyses their mental and emotional suffering caused by the univ...
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