Overview
I am a historian of South Asia and the British Empire, with an interest in women’s studies, visual studies, and digital humanities. My interdisciplinary research combines the study of image-based and textual archives to challenge existing scholarly understandings of colonial and postcolonial political cultures.
My first book-project tentatively titled, Disobedient Women in a Consumer City: Picturing Swadeshi Culture in Colonial Bombay foregrounds the role of women and gender relations in shaping political consumption and market relations in twentieth-century India.
I am also working on a collaborative public history project titled 'Words of Light on the Streets of Disobedience in Bombay' in collaboration with Sumathi Ramaswamy. Developed with New Delhi based Alkazi Foundation for the Arts, this project draws on a collection of documentary photographs compiled in a historical album named Collections of Photographs of Old Congress Party— K.L. Nursey. A video preview of this project is available here. As part of this project, I have published a co-authored peer reviewed journal article ‘Light Writing on the Lathi Raj, Bombay 1930-31’ in the History of Photography. A co-edited volume of essays that engages with this album to present a visual history of the Civil Disobedience Movement in Bombay/ Mumbai is forthcoming (Mapin Publishing, Fall 2025).
Learn more at www.avratibhatnagar.com.
