Dr. Iman Mitra | Department of History

Profile

Dr. Iman
Mitra
Assistant Professor
Department of History and Archaeology
216C
Block-D, Shiv Nadar University
India
Educational Qualifications 
2015
Ph.D.
Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, and Jadavpur University
2007
Master of Science
University of Calcutta
2005
Bachelor of Science
Presidency College, Kolkata
Work Experience 
20172018
Assistant Professor,
Centre for Development Practice and Research, Tata Institute of Social Sciences,
Patna
20162017
Post-Doctoral Research Associate,
Max Weber Stiftung and Centre for Studies in Social Sciences,
Delhi and Kolkata
20142016
Research Associate,
Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group,
Kolkata
Teaching & Research Interests: 

Research Areas:

History of the economic discipline; Economic History and Political Economy of South Asia; Urbanization, migration practices and informal economy in South Asia; State and non-state networks of dissemination of economic knowledge, especially in colonial and postcolonial contexts; Relation between economic rationalities and governmental reason. 

Courses Taught: 

Establishment of British Power in India; Social Change in India; Economic History of India; Globalisation: An Intellectual History; South Asia in Historiography. 

Conferences (Select): 

'The Interrupted Becoming of a City: Patna in the Census of India, 1901-31' in National Conference on Migration at the Centre for Development Practice and Reserch, TISS, Patna, on 27 May 2018.

‘Marx’s Theory of Rent: A Speculative Reading’ in ‘Capital in the East: Marx’s Capital after 150 Years’ organized by Calcutta Research Group, Institute of Development Studies, Kolkata, Jadavpur University, Presidency University and the Department of Economics, University of Calcutta, on 30-31 January 2018. 

‘Between Historicity and Contextuality: Bangiya Dhanabijnan Parishad and Vernacular Economics in Early Twentieth Century Bengal’ in ‘Language, Region, Knowledge: Colonial Disciplines to Indian Social Sciences’ at the Institute of Economic Growth (IEG), New Delhi, on 5 May 2017.   

‘The Politics of Race and Caste in P. C. Mahalanobis’ Early Writings’ in ‘Indian Social Sciences and the Vernacular/s: Disciplinary Histories and the Politics of Knowledge’ at the Institute of Economic Growth (IEG), New Delhi, on 9 February 2017.

‘Biplob, Pratibiplob o Arthaneetir Itihas (Revolution, Counter-revolution and the History of Economics) in ‘Counter-revolution, in Theory and in History of Thought’ organized by the Bengali journal Alochona Chakra and the Indian Council for Social Sciences Research (ICSSR) at the Jadavpur University, Calcutta, on 31 January 2017. 

‘Rental Economy of a City: Calcutta Improvement Trust and Urbanization in the Twentieth Century’ in ‘The City as a Site of the Political: Themes in Urban History, Infrastructure and Culture’ at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, on 16 December 2016.  

‘Spatialization of Calculability, Financialization of Space: A Study of the Kolkata Port’ in the panel ‘Logistics of Asia-Led Globalization: Infrastructure, Software, Labor’ at the conference ‘InterAsian Connections V’ at the Seoul National University Asia Center, Seoul, South Korea, on 27-30 April 2016. 

Awards(Selected): 
2016

Postdoctoral Fellowship with the M. S. Merian-R. Tagore International Centre of Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences (ICAS-MP) in the module ‘History as a Political Category’ at the Institute of Economic Growth, New Delhi

2008

Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR) Doctoral Fellowship at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta

2006

Abhijit Raha Memorial Scholarship for securing highest marks in the paper ‘History of Economics’ at the Masters level in the University of Calcutta

Scholarly Activity

Edited Volume:

Accumulation in Postcolonial Capitalism (Singapore: Springer, 2016), edited jointly with Ranabir Samaddar and Samita Sen.

Book Articles:

‘Marx’s Theory of Rent: A “Speculative” Reading’ in Achin Chakraborty et al (eds.), ‘Capital’ in the East: Reflections on Marx (Singapore: Springer, 2019), 153-70.  

‘Logistical Hubs and the Look East and Act East Policy: The Case of Kolkata and Its Port’ (co-authored with Mithilesh Kumar) in Ranabir Samaddar and Anita Sengupta (eds.), Global Governance and India’s North-East: Logistics, Infrastructure and Society (London and New York: Routledge, 2019), 137-59.  

‘Financialisation of Infrastructure and the Construction of a ‘Seamless Asia’ in Ranabir Samaddar and Anita Sengupta (eds.), Global Governance and India’s North-East: Logistics, Infrastructure and Society (London and New York: Routledge, 2019), 88-107.

‘Urban Planning, Settlement Practices, and Issues of Justice in Contemporary Kolkata’ in Ranabir Samaddar (ed.), Migrant and the Neoliberal City (Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2018), 47-73.

‘The Reality of Economic Models: From Representation to Intervention’ in Madhumati Dutta, Arpita Banerjee, Achiransu Acharyya and Kaushik Das (eds.), Reality and Economics: The Centenary Volume of the Alumni Association of Calcutta University, Economics Department (Kolkata: AACUED, 2018), 13-18.

‘Spatialization of Calculability, Financialization of Space: A Study of the Kolkata Port’ in Brett Nielson, Ned Rossiter and Ranabir Samaddar (eds.), Logistical Asia: The Labour of Making a World Region (Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 47-68.   

‘Introduction’ (coauthored with Ranabir Samaddar and Samita Sen) in Iman Kumar Mitra, Ranabir Samaddar and Samita Sen (eds.), Accumulation in Postcolonial Capitalism (Singapore: Springer, 2016), 1-24.

‘Life, Labour, Recycling: A Study of the Waste Management Practices in Contemporary Kolkata’ (coauthored with Debarati Bagchi) in Iman Kumar Mitra, Ranabir Samaddar and Samita Sen (eds.), Accumulation in Postcolonial Capitalism (Singapore: Springer, 2016), 149-163.

Journal Articles:

‘Public Health, Migrant Workers and a Global Pandemic: Towards a New Politics of Life’, Refugee Watch: A South Asian Journal on Forced Migration, Vol. 57 (June 2021), 1-13. ISSN: 2347-405X.

‘The Interrupted Becoming of a City: Patna in the Census of India, 1901-31’, Journal of Migration Affairs, Vol. 1, No. 1 (September 2018), 87-110. ISSN: 2582-0990.

‘Exchanging Words and Things: Verncularisation of Political Economy in Nineteenth Century Bengal’, The Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. 53, No. 4 (October-December 2016), 501-31. ISSN: 00194646; eBook ISSN: 09730893.

‘Recycling the Urban: Migration Settlement and the Question of Labour in Contemporary Kolkata’, Economic and Political Weekly (Special Issue on Migration and the Neoliberal City) Vol. LI, Nos. 26 & 27 (June 25, 2016), 55-62. ISSN (Online): 2349-8846.