- Department of Sociology
University of Toronto &
University of Toronto Scarborough
Mahua Sarkar
University of Toronto, Sociology, Faculty Member
- Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Sociology, Department MemberInstitut d'Etudes Avancées de Nantes, France-ILO Chair and Fellow, 2016-17, Department MemberWissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, EURIAS Fellow, Department Memberadd
- Sociology, Collective Memory, Migration Studies, Migration History, Public Memory, Sociology of Migration, and 81 moreGender History, Commemoration and Memory, Labor Migration, Forced Migration, History and Memory, History of Bengal, International Historical Sociology, Gender, Muslim feminism, South Asian Studies, Transnational migration, Oral History and Documentary, India, Migration (Sociology), Historical Migrations, Gender Studies, Nationalism, History of Nationalism, Oral history, Nations and nationalism, Women and gender in Muslim societies, Social and Collective Memory, Literary culture of Bengal, South Asia, Sociology of Knowledge, History of Nationalism and Nation-Building, History of Muslim world, political and constitutional developments in india and pakistan, History, Writing and Memory, Women's Oral History, Islam in Europe, Comparative and historical sociology, Historiography, History of Historiography, Cultural Sociology, Indian nationalism, Bangladesh, Bangladeshi diaspora, Historical Sociology, South Asian History, South Asia (History), Bangladesh Studies, South-East Asia, Critical Theory, Migration, Oral History and Memory, History, Political Sociology, Feminism, Critical Race Theory, Islamic History, Women and Gender Issues in Islam, Colonialism, Post-Colonialism, History of India, National Identity, Imperialism, Empire, Subaltern Studies, Islamic feminism, CULTURAL HISTORY OF COLONIAL BENGAL, Anthropology, Cultural Studies, Development Studies, Political Economy, women's education in colonial India, Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, Indian Muslim Women Autobiographies, Epistemology, Social Theory, Race and Ethnicity, Border Studies, Feminist Theory, Political Theory, Cultural Politics, Political Culture, Postcolonial Feminism, Political Violence, Archives, Islam in India, Globalization, and Women's Studiesedit
Unfree and constrained work has been central to global capitalism throughout its history. Rooted in this broad consensus emerging from historical debates over the status of labor, the contributions in this volume explore a set of... more
Unfree and constrained work has been central to global capitalism throughout its history. Rooted in this broad consensus emerging from historical debates over the status of labor, the contributions in this volume explore a set of interrelated themes that include the relationship between free and forced work, migration (both voluntary and induced, transnational and intra-national), and its linkages to the production of constraints, the racialized logic of the global division of labor, and the role that states play in underwriting these processes. Contributors: Alena K. Alamgir, Eric Allina, Stephen Castles, Cindy Hahamovitch, Vincent Houben, Ju Li, William G. Martin, Mahua Sarkar, Anwesha Sengupta.
Research Interests: Industrial And Labor Relations, History, Sociology, Historical Sociology, Sociology of Work, and 24 moreSocial Sciences, Labor Migration, Work and Labour, Transnational migration, Transnational Labour Migration, Labor History and Studies, Socialism, Internal migration, Surrogate Mothering, Surrogacy, Surrogate Motherhood, Forced Labor, Indentured Labour, Guest worker, Convict Labour, Global Labour History, Contemporary Labour Issues and Globalisation, Gestational Surrogacy, Mobility (Internal and International Migration), Commercial Surrogacy, Social Science, Crossborder Surrogacy, Guest work under Socialism, and Migration under Socialism
"In Visible Histories, Disappearing Women, Mahua Sarkar examines how Muslim women in colonial Bengal came to be more marginalized than Hindu women in nationalist discourse and subsequent historical accounts. She also considers how their... more
"In Visible Histories, Disappearing Women, Mahua Sarkar examines how Muslim women in colonial Bengal came to be more marginalized than Hindu women in nationalist discourse and subsequent historical accounts. She also considers how their near-invisibility except as victims has underpinned the construction of the ideal citizen-subject in late colonial India. Through critical engagements with significant feminist and postcolonial scholarship, Sarkar maps out when and where Muslim women enter into the written history of colonial Bengal. She argues that the nation-centeredness of history as a discipline and the intellectual politics of liberal feminism have together contributed to the production of Muslim women as the oppressed, mute, and invisible “other” of the normative modern Indian subject.
Drawing on extensive archival research and oral histories of Muslim women who lived in Calcutta and Dhaka in the first half of the twentieth century, Sarkar traces Muslim women as they surface and disappear in colonial, Hindu nationalist, and liberal Muslim writings, as well as in the memories of Muslim women themselves. The oral accounts provide both a rich source of information about the social fabric of urban Bengal during the final years of colonial rule and a glimpse of the kind of negotiations with stereotypes that even relatively privileged, middle-class Muslim women are still frequently obliged to make in India today. Sarkar concludes with some reflections on the complex links between past constructions of Muslim women, current representations, and the violence against them in contemporary India."
Drawing on extensive archival research and oral histories of Muslim women who lived in Calcutta and Dhaka in the first half of the twentieth century, Sarkar traces Muslim women as they surface and disappear in colonial, Hindu nationalist, and liberal Muslim writings, as well as in the memories of Muslim women themselves. The oral accounts provide both a rich source of information about the social fabric of urban Bengal during the final years of colonial rule and a glimpse of the kind of negotiations with stereotypes that even relatively privileged, middle-class Muslim women are still frequently obliged to make in India today. Sarkar concludes with some reflections on the complex links between past constructions of Muslim women, current representations, and the violence against them in contemporary India."
Research Interests: History, Cultural History, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Gender Studies, and 59 moreHistorical Sociology, Women's Studies, Feminist Theory, Ethnography, Postcolonial Studies, Sociology of Knowledge, History of India, Indian studies, Historiography, History and Memory, Identity (Culture), Politics, Oral history, Colonialism, Culture, Post-Colonialism, Feminism, Islamic Studies, Women and Gender Issues in Islam, Postcolonial Feminism, Postcolonial Theory, Islamic History, Islam, History, Writing and Memory, Intellectual and cultural history, Bangladesh, Politics of Writing History, Subaltern Studies, Empire, History of Colonial India, India, Oral History and Memory, Colonial Discourse, Women and gender in Muslim societies, Communal Conflict, Indian Muslims, Colonial India, Postcolonial Theory/Subaltern Studies, Oral History and Documentary, Conflict and security, Post colonial studies, Muslim Women, Politics of History, Muslims, Sociology of power and knowledge, Bengal, West Bengal, Hindu Muslim relationships, Hindu Nationalism in Modern India, British Raj, Post Colonial Theory, Governance and Democracy, Colonialism and Imperialism, Nationalism and Decolonization, Belonging and Citizenship, Ethnicity and Nationality, Nation building and State making, Sociology of Knowledege, and Late-Colonial India
Research Interests: Sociology and De Gruyter
Research Interests: Sociology and De Gruyter
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
ABSTRACT † This paper has three overarching aims: to contextualise oral history within larger debates over methods in the social sciences; to highlight the peculiar strengths as well as complexities of oral history as a method; and... more
ABSTRACT † This paper has three overarching aims: to contextualise oral history within larger debates over methods in the social sciences; to highlight the peculiar strengths as well as complexities of oral history as a method; and finally to elucidate some of these methodological issues through insights drawn from analysis of oral histories of two elderly Bengali Muslim women.
Research Interests: History, Cultural Studies, Gender Studies, Epistemology, Historical Sociology, and 15 moreEthnography, Feminist Epistemology, Feminism, Intersubjectivity, Feminist Research Methods, Feminist Methodology, Craft, Historical Methodology, Critical Ethnography, Bengali, Hindu Muslim relationships, Ethnography Research methodology, CULTURAL HISTORY OF COLONIAL BENGAL, Oral History, and Hindu Muslim Culture
Research Interests:
Unfree and constrained work has been central to global capitalism throughout its history. Rooted in this broad consensus emerging from historical debates over the status of labor, the contributions in this volume explore a set of... more
Unfree and constrained work has been central to global capitalism throughout its history. Rooted in this broad consensus emerging from historical debates over the status of labor, the contributions in this volume explore a set of interrelated themes that include the relationship between free and forced work, migration (both voluntary and induced, transnational and intra-national), and its linkages to the production of constraints, the racialized logic of the global division of labor, and the role that states play in underwriting these processes. Contributors: Alena K. Alamgir, Eric Allina, Stephen Castles, Cindy Hahamovitch, Vincent Houben, Ju Li, William G. Martin, Mahua Sarkar, Anwesha Sengupta.
Research Interests: Industrial And Labor Relations, History, Historical Sociology, Social Sciences, Labor Migration, and 15 moreLabor History and Studies, Socialism, Internal migration, Forced Labor, Indentured Labour, Guest worker, Convict Labour, Global Labour History, Contemporary Labour Issues and Globalisation, Gestational Surrogacy, Commercial Surrogacy, Social Science, Crossborder Surrogacy, Guest work under Socialism, and Migration under Socialism
A "The Unbearable Whiteness of the Polish Plumber and the Hungarian Peacock Dance around 'Race'"-című tanulmány magyar változata. The Hungarian version of the paper "The Unbearable Whiteness of the Polish Plumber and the Hungarian... more
A "The Unbearable Whiteness of the Polish Plumber and the Hungarian Peacock Dance around 'Race'"-című tanulmány magyar változata.
The Hungarian version of the paper "The Unbearable Whiteness of the Polish Plumber and the Hungarian Peacock Dance around 'Race'."
https://www.academia.edu/33969498/The_Unbearable_Whiteness_of_the_Polish_Plumber_and_the_Hungarian_Peacock_Dance_around_Race_
The Hungarian version of the paper "The Unbearable Whiteness of the Polish Plumber and the Hungarian Peacock Dance around 'Race'."
https://www.academia.edu/33969498/The_Unbearable_Whiteness_of_the_Polish_Plumber_and_the_Hungarian_Peacock_Dance_around_Race_
Research Interests: Sociology, European Studies, Social Sciences, Race and Racism, Migration, and 15 moreCritical Race Theory, European Union, Racism, Racialization, European Union Politics, France, Poland, United Kingdom, Central and Eastern Europe, Hungary, Dependency, Brexit, Whiteness and White supremacy, eurowhiteness, and Eurofehérség
A review essay on Lila Abu-Lughod's book Do Muslim Women Need Saving? (Harvard University Press, 2013)
Research Interests: History, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Anthropology, Social Sciences, and 39 moreMiddle East Studies, Postcolonial Studies, South Asian Studies, Social Representations, Muslim Family Law, South Asia, Culture, Social Activism, Islamic Studies, Postcolonial Feminism, Marriage and Divorce, Postcolonial Theory, Islam, Islamic feminism, Middle East Politics, Muslim feminism, Activism, War, Knowledge, Representation, Knowledge Production, Colonial Discourse, Muslim personal law, Women and gender in Muslim societies, Coloniality, Muslim Women's Studies, Muslim Women, Honor, Politics of representation, Divorce, Politics of knowledge production, Honour, Islamic family law and Muslim feminisms, Postcolonial feminisms, Poligamy, Colonial Discourses, War In the Middle East, Social Science, and Musawa
The paper proposes a critical understanding of contemporary " low-skilled, " trans-national contract work/circular migration as a guest-worker regime. Rather than approach circular migration as an instrument of development, or a human... more
The paper proposes a critical understanding of contemporary " low-skilled, " trans-national contract work/circular migration as a guest-worker regime. Rather than approach circular migration as an instrument of development, or a human rights problem, this paper situates it within the larger, historical debates over the status of labour that emphasise questions of surplus extraction. Drawing on ethnographic research among Bangladeshi male migrants in Singapore and return workers in Bangladesh, the paper explores two crucial moments in the life of migrants—of choosing overseas contract work, and of leaving. In each moment, it highlights certain mechanisms that push migrants along the porous line between free and un-free work, incrementally toward the latter.
Research Interests: History, Sociology, Historical Sociology, Southeast Asian Studies, Sociology of Work, and 20 moreSocial Sciences, South Asian Studies, History of Labor Migration, Migration, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Labor Migration, International Migration, Migration Studies, Work and Labour, Migration History, Sociology of Migration, Transnational migration, Contemporary International Migration, Bangladesh, Transnational Labour Migration, History of Migration, Contract Labor Programs, Social Science, and Contract Labour
The paper focuses on the (re)emergence in the late twentieth century of a specific form of cross-border labour migration--viz. guest-work or circular/managed migration--that is designed to keep migrants from settling in receiving... more
The paper focuses on the (re)emergence in the late twentieth century of a specific form of cross-border labour migration--viz. guest-work or circular/managed migration--that is designed to keep migrants from settling in receiving countries. The paper is part of a larger project that situates this form of transnational work-mobility regimes within the larger historical debates over the slippery line between free labour and forced labour. Specifically, it traces the genealogy of guest-work, and makes some preliminary observations about the specificity of contemporary circular / managed migration as it becomes incrementally normalized as a desirable policy tool across the world.
Research Interests: History, Sociology, Historical Sociology, Social Sciences, Globalization, and 42 moreLabour history, The Persian Gulf, Policy, South-East Asia, World History, Malaysia, Labor Migration, Global History, Work and Labour, Global and Comparative Sociology, Transnational migration, Bangladesh, Transnational Labour Migration, Labor History and Studies, Policy Analysis, Comparative and historical sociology, History of Migration, Malaysian Studies, Germany, South Africa, Arabian/Persian Gulf Studies, South East Asian Studies, United States, Normalization, Gastarbeiter, Circular Migration, History of Work, Migration Policy, Guest worker, Historical and Comparative Sociology, Contract Labor Programs, Global Labour History, Guest Worker Programs, Managed Migration, Public Policy, Politics of Migration, Contract Labour, Mobility of Workers, Policy Tools, Circular Labour Migration, global history of labor, and work-mobility regime
Vita. U.M.I. no. 9927164. Thesis (Ph. D.)--Johns Hopkins University, 1999. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 189-230). Microfilm.
This paper approaches the story of women’s negotiations with social reforms in late colonial urban Bengal through an analysis of private reminiscences of elderly Muslim and Hindu women. Skirting the larger stories of nationalist... more
This paper approaches the story of women’s negotiations with social reforms in late colonial urban Bengal through an analysis of private reminiscences of elderly Muslim and Hindu women. Skirting the larger stories of nationalist transformation, conflict and dislocation that so often dominate discussions of Muslim-Hindu relations in the subcontinent, the life stories analyzed here foreground an intimate realm of everyday experiences that captures a ‘feeling’ for a bygone time and context, and the complex linkages between public memory and individual biography. The paper also pays attention to the oral narratives as inter-subjective, dialogically produced ‘texts’ that are fraught with tensions.
Research Interests: History, Sociology, Social Change, Historical Sociology, Self and Identity, and 32 moreWomen's Studies, Women's History, Social Identity, History of India, Identity (Culture), Oral history, Colonialism, Women, Post-Colonialism, National Identity, Postcolonial Feminism, Muslim Minorities, History of Everyday Life, Modern Indian History, Bangladesh, History of Colonial India, Women and Culture, Historical Sociology (Social Sciences), India, Identity, Women and Gender Studies, Oral History and Memory, communalism in India, Indian History, Alltagsgeschichte, Communalism, Bengal, West Bengal, Hindu Muslim relationships, Commensality, Hindus Muslims colonial India English education, and East Bengal
This paper has three overarching aims: to contextualise oral history within larger debates over methods in the social sciences; to highlight the peculiar strengths as well as complexities of oral history as a method; and finally to... more
This paper has three overarching aims: to contextualise oral history within larger debates over methods in the social sciences; to highlight the peculiar strengths as well as complexities of oral history as a method; and finally to elucidate some of these methodological issues through insights drawn from analysis of oral histories of two elderly Bengali Muslim women.
Research Interests: History, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Gender Studies, Historical Sociology, and 42 moreCultural Sociology, Women's Studies, Social Research Methods and Methodology, Social Sciences, Research Methods and Methodology, Research Methodology, Ethnography, Feminist Epistemology, Oral history, Life history, Feminism, Women and Gender Issues in Islam, Ethnography (Research Methodology), Qualitative Research, Postcolonial Feminism, Intersubjectivity, In-depth Interviews, Social History, History of Everyday Life, Qualitative Research Methods, Feminist Research Methods, Interviewing, Feminist Methodology, India, Oral History and Memory, Women and gender in Muslim societies, Muslim Women's Studies, Oral History and Documentary, Partition of India, Historical methods, Historical Methodology, Critical Ethnography, História Oral, Critique of Positivism; Social Science Logic of Explanation; Sociological Theory, Bengal, Hindu Muslim relationships, Oral histories, CULTURAL HISTORY OF COLONIAL BENGAL, Oral History, Hindu Muslim Culture, Comparative and Historical Methods, and Ethnography and Oral History
Research Interests: History, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Political Sociology, Sociology of Culture, and 12 moreHistorical Sociology, Globalization, Colonialism, Post-Colonialism, Global Structures, Empire, Comparative and historical sociology, Imperialism, Coloniality, Colonial History, Historical Studies, and Historical and Comparative Sociology
Research Interests: History, Sociology, Economic Sociology, Political Sociology, Political Sociology, and 12 moreSociology of Culture, Legitimacy and Authority, Imperial History, Colonialism, Empires, Power and authority in the Early Modern period, History of Imperialism, Empire, Imperialism, Overseas Empires, Contiguous Empires, and History of Empires
Research Interests: History, Sociology, Social Change, Gender Studies, Historical Sociology, and 33 moreWomen's Studies, Social Sciences, Women's History, Ethnography, Postcolonial Studies, Indian studies, History and Memory, Oral history, Gender, Women, Post-Colonialism, Women and Gender Issues in Islam, Memory Studies, Social and Collective Memory, Sociology of Memory, Cultural Memory, Collective Memory, Postcolonial Theory, In-depth Interviews, Social History, Modern Indian History, History, Writing and Memory, Social Memory, Public Memory, Interviewing, Social memory; social experience and uses of the past, Historical Sociology (Social Sciences), Politics of the Past in Present, India, Memory, Oral History and Memory, Indian History, and Post colonial studies
Research Interests: European History, Sociology, Economic Sociology, Political Sociology, Political Geography and Geopolitics, and 37 morePolitical Economy, European integration, Critical Geopolitics, Transnationalism, Postcolonial Studies, Geopolitics, Geopolitical Economy, Critical European Studies, Political Ecology, Global Governance, Immigration, International Political Economy, Colonialism, Post-Colonialism, European Union, Empires, European Economic Integration, European Integration (Area Studies), Postcolonial Theory, European Integration History, Global Structures, Environmental Justice, Colonisation, Decolonisation and Regional/ Global Integration, Social Class, European Union Politics, Regional Integration, Empire, Identity, Imperialism, Critical Development Studies, The West and the Rest, Immigrant integration, Globalizaton and Postcolonial Studies, Climate Politics, Global Power Structures, Global (North/South) Environmental Politics, and European Union Policies
Research Interests: History, Feminist Sociology, Political Sociology, Gender Studies, Historical Sociology, and 17 moreWomen's Studies, Feminist Theory, Sociology of Knowledge, History of India, Indian studies, Critical Race Theory, Feminism, Women and Gender Issues in Islam, Islamic History, Islamic feminism, Feminist history, Feminist activism, Comparative and historical sociology, International Historical Sociology, India, Geopolitics of knowledge, and Historical and Comparative Sociology
Research Interests: Sociology, Political Sociology, Historical Sociology, Indian studies, Social Representations, and 11 morePolitics, Identity politics, Cinema, Indian Politics, Indian Cinema, India, communalism in India, Portrayal Muslims in Indian Cinema, Communalism, Caste and Politics in India, and Muslims Representation In Indian Cinema and Media
Research Interests: History, Sociology, Political Sociology, Historical Sociology, History of India, and 14 moreColonialism, Pakistan, Post-Colonialism, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, History of Historiography, Subaltern Studies, Empire, History of Colonial India, India, Imperialism, CULTURAL HISTORY OF COLONIAL BENGAL, and Politics of Visibility
Talk at the Opening Event of the Karl Polányi Center for Global Social Studies at Corvinus University Budapest
Research Interests: History, Cultural History, Sociology, Sociology of Culture, Historical Sociology, and 18 moreTranslation Studies, Sociology of Knowledge, History of India, Indian studies, Socialisms, History of the USSR, Socialism, Translation, Comparative and historical sociology, History of knowledge, International Historical Sociology, India, Russia/USSR, Interpreters and Translators, Socialisms and Postsocialisms, Historical and Comparative Sociology, Sociology of Culture and Communication, and Soviet-Indian relations
This paper explores the incorporation and uses of women within dominant historical accounts of colonial India through an examination of the sexual relationships between British men stationed in the Indian subcontinent and their ‘native’... more
This paper explores the incorporation and uses of women within dominant historical accounts of colonial India through an examination of the sexual relationships between British men stationed in the Indian subcontinent and their ‘native’ consorts” – concubines, common law wives, and nautch (dancing) girls – in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Such encounters between the colonizers and a specific subset of the ‘subject peoples’ are both romanticized and at the same time trivialized as frivolous sexual dalliance in much of the extant historiography of that era, when, in fact, as the paper argues, they were a crucial element in the reproduction of the Company’s workforce in the subcontinent. Both the relationships and the women whose sexual and other labor were appropriated through such relationships thus merit more careful attention. The paper also traces some important changes in the terms of interaction between the British and their ‘subject’ populations in the nineteenth century. It ends with a brief discussion of the ways in which the changing representations of ‘native’ women in colonial discourse in turn influenced subsequent reformist and/or nationalist discourses of the indigenous middle classes on the “woman question” in the nineteenth century.
Research Interests: Discourse Analysis, History, Gender Studies, Historical Sociology, Sex and Gender, and 27 moreWomen's Studies, Women's History, Gender History, History of India, Sexuality, Gender and Sexuality, Class, Nationalism, History of Sexuality, Colonialism, Gender, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, National Identity, Critical Discourse Analysis, Women and Gender Issues in Islam, British Imperial and Colonial History (1600 - ), Nepal, History of Imperialism, Bangladesh, Empire, History of Colonial India, International Historical Sociology, India, Race, Imperialism, and History and culture of India and Great Britain, British colonial policy in India
Research Interests:
... Emergence of feminism among indian muslim women 1920-1947. Auteur(s) : ALI Azra Asgahr Date de parution: 06-2000 Langue : ANGLAIS Paperback Etat : Disponible chez l'éditeur (délai de livraison : 12 jours) © Lavoisier... more
... Emergence of feminism among indian muslim women 1920-1947. Auteur(s) : ALI Azra Asgahr Date de parution: 06-2000 Langue : ANGLAIS Paperback Etat : Disponible chez l'éditeur (délai de livraison : 12 jours) © Lavoisier ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
... I owe special thanks to Omita Goyal and Mimi Choudhury, commissioning editors at Sage Publications ... National newspapers, and specifically Hindi regional newspapers such as The Leader, Dainik Jagran and Abhyudaya, provided political... more
... I owe special thanks to Omita Goyal and Mimi Choudhury, commissioning editors at Sage Publications ... National newspapers, and specifically Hindi regional newspapers such as The Leader, Dainik Jagran and Abhyudaya, provided political information about Uttar Pradesh, and ...