Speaker Series: Kalyani Ramnath

This talk will draw from Dr. Ramnath’s forthcoming book Boats in a Storm: Law, Migration, and Decolonization in South and Southeast Asia 1942 – 1962 (Stanford University Press, 2023). Migrant struggle with the law – in transnational disputes over taxation, immigration, and detention between 1940s and 1960s – form a lesser-known archive for decolonization. A critical reading of this archive offers insights into the contours of citizenship today and offers opportunities to reflect on continuities in conversations around belonging, loyalty, displacement, and dispossession.

This speaker will present virtually, with the option to view in-person at the ABF. To register, contact Sophie Kofman at skofman@abfn.org. 

Kalyani Ramnath is an Assistant Professor in the department of History at the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Georgia. She is a historian of modern South Asia, with research and teaching interests in legal history, histories of migration and displacement, transnational history, and questions of archival method. Her first book, Boats in a Storm: Law, Migration, and Decolonization in South and Southeast Asia 1942 – 1962 is forthcoming with Stanford University Press in August 2023.