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Dr Deborah Sutton

Lecturer

Degree: BA(York), MSc(Sheffield), PhD(Jawaharlal Nerhu University)

Personal website

Current Teaching

HIST278: Sex and Violence in Imperial India

HIST279: Resistance and the End of Empire in India

HIST369: Indian Partition and the Post-Colonial Nation

HIST401: Research and Writing History

Research Interests

I will be on leave supported by a Leverhulme research award from September 2011 - September 2012.

Current research

My current research explores the encounter between modernity and the Hindu temple in South Asia. It traces the temple as a space of encounter and as a free-standing object of governance, law, art and devotion. The Hindu temple represents a unique means to re-chart a period of extraordinary change in the economy, culture and polity of South Asia; in its many facets the complexities of colonial conquest and Imperial culture are reflected and deflected. This research examines specific temple complexes in Eastern and Southern India as well as looking at broader ranges of cultural practice and architectural scholarship, in particular that of Stella Kramrisch.

Past research

My work on the Nilgiri Hills of South India was concerned with the juridical interfaces that were formed between the incoming state, settlers and the indigenous communties in the nineteenth century. This research explored the cultures of property and landscape that allowed the reinterpretation and subdivision of the hills into different categories of resources.

Other recent research wasconcerned with the jurisdiction presumed by the Indian state over overseas populations of Indian origin after independence in 1947. This project interrogated the presumptions reflected in the influence Indian missions attempted to exercise over Indian politics and society in remnant British territories.

Recent Publications

• 'Indian Sovereignty and the Indian Subject: Partition and politics beyond the nation, 1947 - 1965', Contemporary South Asia. vol 19, no. 4. 2011, 409-425.
• 'Redeeming the wood by destroying the forest: sholas, plantations and colonial conservancyin nineteenth-century South India', in Damodaran, V., Kumar, D. and D'Souza, R., (eds.), The British Empire and the Natural World. Environmental Encounters in South Asia. OUP, New Delhi, 2010.
• Other Landscapes: Colonialism and the Predicament of Authority in Nineteenth-Century South India. Nordic Institute for Asian Studies Press, 2009; Orient Blackswan, New Delhi, 2011.
• 'Difference in History', editor's note to special issue of the Journal of Historical Sociology, 'Marking and Making Difference: History and Identity', 20 (2007), 203-8.
• 'Divided and uncertain loyalties: partition, Indian sovereignty and contested citizenship in East Africa, 1948-1955', Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, 9 (2007), 276-88.
• 'The Political Consecration of Community in Mauritius, 1948-1968', Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 35 (2007), 239-62.
• With Gunnel Cederlof, 'The Aboriginal Toda: On Indigeneity, Ethnology and Privileged Access to Land in the Nilgiri Hills, South India', in Bengt G. Karlsson and Tanka B Subba (eds.), Indigeneity in India. Keegan Paul, 2006.
• '"In this the land of the Todas": Imaginary Landscapes and Colonial Policy in Nineteenth-Century Southern India', in M. Dorrian and G. Rose (eds.), Deterritorialisations, Revisioning Landscape and Politics. London, 2003.
• '"Horrid Sights and Customary Rights": The Toda Funeral on the Colonial Nilgiris', Indian Economic and Social History Review, 39 (2002), 45-70.

Works Forthcoming

• 'Sholas', Encyclopedia of the Nilgiri Hills, vol. 2, Paul Hockings (ed.), New Delhi: Manohar Books; Walnut Creek, Cal.: AltaMira Press.
• 'Devotion, Antiquity and Colonial Custody of the Hindu Temple in British India', Modern Asian Studies.

Some relevant Links for Students

• The History and Politics Section of Manas - an resource created and maintained by Dr. Vinay Lal at UCLA.
• The Digital South Asia library at Chicago University - an excellent resource for images and bibliographies.
• Sarai - South Asia Resource Access on the Internet.

Potential Doctoral Proposals

Dr Sutton is interested in hearing from students interested in writing dissertations and theses on topics that would fall under the following headings:

• Modern Indian history
• South Asian Agrarian History
• The Indian diaspora

Associated Keywords: Agriculture, Archaeology, Citizenship, Colonialism, Conservation, East Africa, Environment, Hinduism, History, Imperialism, India, Mauritius, Migration and diaspora, Secularisation, South Asia

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