Speaker: Dr.Uditi Sen, Hampshire College, Amherst, USA.

Title: Developing Terra Nullius: Colonialism, Nationalism and Indigeneityin the Andaman Islands.

Time: 3.30 pm

Date: 11th February 2015 (Wednesday)

Venue: Seminar Hall, Department of HSS.

Abstract:This paper demonstrates how the construction of the Andaman Islands as "empty’ land in exploratory reports and surveys paved the way forsettlement of land and violent displacement of the indigenous population incolonial and post-colonial periods. The indigenous communities of theAndaman Islands gained little from India’s independence and its pursuit ofnational development. Instead, post-colonial visions of developing ‘backward’ tracts ushered in a settler-colonial governmentality, infusedwith genocidal fantasies of the ‘dying savage’. It demonstrates how lawsprofessing to protect Andaman’s aboriginal tribes, especially the Jarawas,actually work to unilaterally extend Indian sovereignty over the lands andbodies of a community clearly hostile to such incorporation. It situatesIndia within a global history of contingent manifestations andmobilisations of the doctrine of *terra nullius *and demonstratesresonances between the texture of colonialism experienced by tribes inIndia and indigenous populations of settler-colonial polities.

About the Speaker:Uditi Sen is an Assistant professor of South Asian Studies and History atHampshire College. She received her B.A. from Presidency College, Kolkataand her M.A. from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. She completeda PhD in History from the University of Cambridge in 2009 and was a MaxWeberFellow at the European University Institute between 2011 and 2012.Uditi’s research interests include state-society relations in independentIndia, the gendered nature of governance and the complex relationshipbetween displacement and development. Through micro-histories ofrehabilitation policies she explores how categories and discourses ofgovernance have impinged upon the lives of vulnerable citizens. Oralhistorical research forms a vital component of her work, which enables herto give prominence to perspectives ‘from below’ and investigate theinterface between memory and identity.