The Belonging Project is off to a fantastic start today! It was wonderful to host Mohsin Alam Bhat, Shardul Gopujkar, and Arushi Gupta, the co-authors of the "Unmaking Citizens: The Architecture of Rights Violations and Exclusion in India’s Citizenship Trials": www.nls.ac.in/wp-content/u...

In case you missed it: There is a new special issue of the Journal of American Ethnic History ( @illinoispress.bsky.social ) guest edited by @migrantherstory.bsky.social and @irpinaingiro.bsky.social on "Immigration and Citizenship." scholarlypublishingcollective.org/uip/jaeh/iss...

Congratulations, @kalathmika.bsky.social !

A privilege to review Nadeera Rupesinghe's Lawmaking in Dutch Sri Lanka: a must read and instant classic on legal pluralism - bmgn-lchr.nl/article/view...

Did you miss us at the 2025 Annual Conference on South Asia? You can still enjoy our virtual exhibit: receive a 30% discount on the books listed using the discount code S25CSA at checkout, good between 10/15/2025 - 11/25/2025.

A short piece on "forgotten" histories of citizenship for @scroll.in scroll.in/article/1087...

The 2020 coastal land use map of Great Nicobar showed coral reefs hugging its shores. In the 2021 version, the reefs vanished from the coast and reappeared in the middle of the sea. Experts told Vaishnavi Rathore they doubt the map’s authenticity. scroll.in/article/1087...

I have a new article out. TLDR: Actively courting deportation by air is a way to claim rights as a stateless person and even as a refugee. academic.oup.com/past/advance...

my book (!) ‘A Volatile Picture: War and the Political Work of Photography in Sri Lanka’ encompassing a decade of research on Tamil photographic practices set against a backdrop of ethno/nationalist conflict & the island’s turbulent post/war out Spring 26 uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295...

For legal historians: did you publish a book recently that won't be represented at the Detroit ASLH conference book sale in Nov.2025? You should bring a copy for this new initiative to showcase your work! Much needed as only a few publishers are represented at the book sale: aslh.net/new-works-in...

The cover for my book, The Future That Was, is now live! It features the MacArthur genius artist Shahzia Sikander's Infinite Woman (2021), where earth is surrounded by an infinite series of women marching around the globe who, from afar, become rays of the sun ☀️ press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

Very excited that the Asian Legal History Association will be formally launched at 2 events in March 2026--at Chinese University of Hong Kong (March 17-18, 2026) + Oxford (March 23)! Here's the Call for Papers for "Legal History in Asia and Beyond" (due Oct31): www.law.cuhk.edu.hk/app/events/c...

Boats in a Storm gets an India edition with Westland Books @westlandbooks.bsky.social! Releasing on 18 August.

How a small island nation that produced virtually none of the emissions changing Earth's climate is struggling to move its people and villages uphill amidst USAID and other foreign assistance cutbacks: wapo.st/3JsEao4 [gift link]

"Tamil asylum denial was not only a matter of domestic politics, but one that crucially entailed international and transnational dimensions." Niro Kandasamy on the complex history and politics of asylum denial. www.historyworkshop....

My review of Vineeta Sinha's Temple Tracks: Labor, Piety and Railway Construction in Asia. Absolutely brilliant on history & memory, ruination & revival, the role of labor, gender, kinship & religion, identities that travel, morph & unsettle across oceans. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

This is going to be a fantastic book.

Taking up the sorry task of trying to AI-proof the syllabus for my research seminar. Please share tips, advice, examples.

Really pleased and proud to announce a new @ihr.bsky.social seminar - Migration and Mobility History. We want to cover migration across time and space and speak with colleagues across disciplines. If you're interested in attending/presenting, get in touch: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

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A generous review of Boats in a Storm for readers of Simplified Chinese: mp.weixin.qq.com/s/HuYp6TK6wG...

Our Special 20th Anniversary Issue ends with a Postscript written by Kalyani Ramnath, Editor-in-Chief of SLR in 2007. Ramnath reflects on SLR’s journey, particularly the initial years, placing the question of socio-legal in an institutional context. repository.nls.ac.in/slr/vol20/is...

I’m thrilled to finally share my article on citizenship, caste, and exit control at the time of the India-Pakistan partition out now on first view in Modern Asian Studies: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #skystorians

A shoutout for Elizabeth Lhost's wonderful essay on the contributions and challenges of socio-legal studies x legal history @slr-nlsiu.bsky.social @lawandhistrev.bsky.social - #History #AcademicSky repository.nls.ac.in/cgi/viewcont...

Today is World Refugee Day. ✊🗃 From the archive, a podcast episode by Ria Kapoor @riakapoor.bsky.social featuring Peter Gatrell, Pual Dudman @paulvdudman.bsky.social, Heather Faulkner and Mezna Qato @meznaqato.bsky.social, on creating Refugee Archives. www.historyworkshop.... #WorldRefugeeDay

This looks fantastic, with a great line-up of scholars including legal historians Elizabeth Lhost and Kalyani Ramnath (who was there in the early days)! Also includes Anup Surendranath & Maitreyi Misra on death penalty (India) and Maryam Khan on socio-legal studies in Pakistan. Congratulations, all!

SLR's Special 20th Anniversary Issue is out now! Volume 20(2) reflects on two decades of socio-legal inquiry from India, South Asia, and beyond—through legal history, anthropology, mitigation practice, comparative method & institutional memory. Read here: repository.nls.ac.in/slr/

@slr-nlsiu.bsky.social 20th #anniversary: I was delighted to write a reflective essay on early years of SLR at #NLSIU and interdisciplinary legal research and publishing in #India repository.nls.ac.in/slr/vol20/is...

@slr-nlsiu.bsky.social 20th #anniversary: I was delighted to write a reflective essay on early years of SLR at #NLSIU and interdisciplinary legal research and publishing in #India Of interest to @lawandsociety.bsky.social @lawandhistrev.bsky.social @abfresearch.bsky.social @slsauk.bsky.social

@slr-nlsiu.bsky.social launched their 20th anniversary issue yesterday, featuring superstars Elizabeth Lhost, Maryam Khan, Anup Surendranath and Maitreyi Misra, and Sara Dezalay. The 20th anniversary issue also includes an essay by Deepa Das Acevedo and Jahnavi Chamarthi. Watch recording here -

Congratulations and celebrations to @slr-nlsiu.bsky.social and editors and authors past and present. Please sign up below for the launch of the 20th anniversary issue 18 June at 3 PM with the stellar line up of authors!

CFP: Radical History Review has a new special issue, edited by Evan Taparata, Jecca Namakkal, Kalyani Ramnath, and Amy Chazkel. It’s titled “mobility regimes” and is looking to put migrationists of many stripes in conversation – here’s the CFP: www.radicalhistoryreview.org/mobility-reg...

Please see this @radhistreview.bsky.social call for proposals on Mobility Regimes | Edited by Amy Chazkel, Jecca Namakkal, Evan Taparata, and myself | Deadline June 15, 2025.

It was a pleasure to review Reshad Duraghee's The Indentured Archipelago for the American Historical Review - academic.oup.com/ahr/article-...

🎙️📚"To say what the Gulf was according to the migrants, I did not want to read them as victims. I wanted to look at the kind of literature they wrote, the kind of photographs they produced or the films they made." A conversation with Mohamed Shafeeq Karinkurayil:

Raise Your Voice (2022) by Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya at the Museum of the City of New York.

Working on a first book that engages legal history, broadly defined? Apply to the ASLH's Wallace Johnson First Book Program! Deadline: June 27, 2025. aslh.net/award/wallac...

Another world is possible.

It has a cover! I am so excited to have The Predatory Sea: Human Trafficking and Captivity in the Seventeenth-Century Caribbean coming out September 2025 with @pennpress.bsky.social! 🗃️

Or read about the 1940s to 1960s in S Asia.

Honored and grateful that the Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy book prize 2025 has been awarded to “Hurt sentiments”. A full list of all books awarded is in the link below. Many thanks to the members of the jury for this award, and to reader and reviewers for their reception of the book. @harvardpress

On World Radio Day, read this review of Isabel Alonso's phenomenal Radio for the Millions - www.himalmag.com/politics/rad...

Another world is possible.

Excellent critique by @jannenijman.bsky.social of ca. 2025 "Let's Buy #Greenland" exhortations, plus deep contextualization through account of #PredatoryCapitalism which put Manhattan into Dutch empire ca. 1625 @ejiltalk.bsky.social

From the brilliant Harini Kumar on Chennai Shaheen Bagh: "Although the protests were about a citizenship law, Muslim women were in fact pointing to various modes of belonging that cannot be captured by the bureaucratic apparatus of the state." journals.openedition.org/samaj/9727

Suraj Gogoi and Arijit Sen write about conditional citizenship in India and the US: scroll.in/article/1078...