This research programme is funded by
the Arts and Humanities Research
Council and runs from January 2005 to
the end of February 2010 with a budget
of £6.3 million.
Director: Professor Kim Knott
Commissioning projects
within the programme
In October 2005, we commissioned
• 20 small research projects
• 14 workshops and networks (including
‘Writing British Asian Cities’
In July 2006, we commissioned
• 15 large research grants (from a total of 157
applications), including four studentships.
See posters.
Programme activities
In addition to projects, networks and workshops, other
programme activities include,
• Programme database and email updates;
• Programme website, www.diasporas.ac.uk;
• Workshops for award-holders;
• Two postgraduate conferences, 2006 and 2008;
• Open seminars and joint programme events in 2008;
• Stakeholder events and final conference in 2009;
• A programme book, Diasporas: Concepts, Identities,
Intersections, policy briefings, practice-led output etc.
Key priorities of the
Programme
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Research quality, range and coherence;
Research engagement and dissemination (including
knowledge exchange);
Collaboration and interdisciplinarity;
Monitoring and evaluation of programme and its impact;
Improving public awareness of the programme and arts
and humanities research;
Embedding research on diasporas, migration and
identities in medium to long term agenda (of AHRC and
academy more generally);
Other projects on South
Asian diasporas
Dr Kate Pahl (SG)
Artefacts and narratives of
migration: Rotherham
museum collections and
the Pakistani/Kashmiri
community
This project involved collaboration
between two universities, Creative
Partnerships, a museum, local
families, a school, a Sure Start
centre, and a visual artist. It
explored ways in which museum
practices and the collection of
artefacts within a museum are
both upheld and disrupted through
the presentation of an exhibition of
identity narratives. The exhibition,
at the Walker Gallery Rotherham,
was opened in February 2007,
and a web-based version is at
http://www.ferhamfamilies.com/intro.html.
Other projects on South Asian
diasporas
Prof John Baily (SG)
Afghan music in London
and its ongoing
communications with
Kabul and the Afghan
Transnational Community
Research into the dynamics of music
practice amongst Afghans in London, and
how through their cultural performances
they communicate with Afghanistan and
other parts of the Afghan diaspora.
Building on work already carried out in
Pakistan, Iran and the USA, the project
focused on musical innovation, the
feedback of new music from the periphery
(the transnational community) to the
centre (Kabul), and the connection
between the creation of new music and
transformations in the construction of
cultural identity.
A public concert was held in London in
November 2006.
Research on Asian diasporas
This project brings together historical,
sociological and anthropological
perspectives and methodologies to
compare the history of migration and
Dr Joya Chatterji and settlement of Bengali Muslims in the
Bengal Delta region and across the UK
Dr Claire Alexander
since 1947. It will enquire who these
The Bengal
migrants were, where they came from,
and why they resettled where they did,
Diaspora: Bengali
settlers in South Asiaand explore in what ways their
experience of integration has been
and Britain
shaped by their different locations. It
will focus on oral history accounts of
migration, arrival and settlement, the
imagination of old and new ‘homes’,
and the formation of new cultural and
religious communities.
Research on Asian diasporas
This project investigates the presence of ‘South
Asian’ clothing textiles in ‘British’ culture in both
colonial and post-colonial times. In exploring the
processes of material cultural exchange between
Britain and South Asia the research will cast new
light on both the imperial diaspora in India and
contemporary South Asian diasporas in Britain.
1. ‘Indian’ textiles associated with the colonial British
diaspora centred on the collections of the Victoria
and Albert Museum (1850s to 1880s) .
2. a parallel analysis of contemporary (1990s and
2000s) arrays of ‘South Asian’ textiles associated
with the post-colonial South Asian diasporas.
3. engagements between clothing textiles from the
V&A’s collections and contemporary ‘British-Asian’
fashion and textile practitioners and consumers.
Professor Philip Crang
and the V&A
Fashioning Diaspora
Space: textiles, pattern
and cultural exchange
Research on Asian diasporas
Thirty years ago, the workers in a photoprocessing plant in north west London –
Grunwick’s – walked out in an industrial protest
about low pay and exploitative conditions. The
workers and the leaders of the industrial action
were mainly women, and the majority of them first
generation Asian migrants to the UK. This strike
became an iconic example of Asian women’s
political empowerment in post-war Britain. Thirty
years later, almost identical imagery was used in
the coverage of the Gate Gourmet strike, a strike Professor Ruth Pearson and
Professor Linda McDowell
by workers in a food preparation firm providing
airline meals for flights from Heathrow.
Asian women’s political
activism: Grunwick and
The main methodologies include oral histories
Gate Gourmet disputes
undertaken with women workers and the
collection and analysis of archival and other
documentary sources relating to both strikes.
Research on Asian diasporas
Dr Katy Gardner
and Dr Kanwal Mand
Home and Away:
Experiences and
Representations of
Transnational South
Asian Children
The research explores how South Asian
children in East London (aged 8-13 years
old) experience and represent 'transnational
lives', whether this involves travel to 'the
homeland', or being part of families and
communities in which people constantly
move. It draws attention to South Asian
children born in Britain, many of whom are
taken on or receive regular visitors from the
'homeland', and are likely to have a
significantly different perspectives than
adults on questions of belonging, cultural
identity and place. They are in transition, yet
beyond popular assumptions of being
'between two cultures', we know little about
their perspectives. The project involves
collaborations with schools, local artists and
the Museum of Childhood in Bethnel Green.
Forthcoming joint
programme activities
We are working with other programmes to organise joint
events which will involve award holders and allow them to
disseminate their research in interdisciplinary contexts.
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Encounters and Intersections: Diasporas, Religion and
Identities Joint conference (with AHRC/ESRC ‘Religion and
Society’ and ESRC ‘Identities and Social Action’), 9-11 July
2008, St Catherine’s College Oxford;
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Diasporas, space and the city Joint double session (with
AHRC ‘Landscape and Environment’) at RGS/IBG Annual
Conference, London 27-29 August 2008.
Writing British Asian Leeds
- religion and food -