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Professor of Anthropology and Cultural Studies, University of Sussex

Raminder Kaur was awarded her BA (Combined Honours) in Social Anthropology and Art and Archaeology and her PhD at SOAS, University of London. She has held post-doctoral research positions at Brunel University (ESRC funded project 'Reconsidering Ethnicity'), University of East Anglia (Getty Research Fellow) and at the University of Manchester (Simon-Marks Fellow). She was previously a Lecturer at the University of Manchester.

Raminder served on the Mayor's Commission for Asian and African Heritage (MCAAH) and was a member of the subsequent Heritage Diversity Task Force at the Greater London Authority. She co-authored the MCAAH report, Delivering Shared Heritage, which received the Eurocities Award for Cooperation in Gdansk, in 2007. (Eurocities is a membership network of major European cities that brings together local governments of more than 130 large cities).

She was a Trustee for Museums, Libraries and Archives London and Honorary Treasurer for the Association for Social Anthropologists (ASA) as well as ASA representative for the World Council of Anthropological Associations (WCAA). and Chair of the WCAA Ethics Taskforce

She is Co-Director of the Sussex Asia Centre and formerly Director of Doctoral Studies and interim Director of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at the Sussex School of Global Studies. She collaborated with others at the School to coordinate programmes of artists, staff and students work for Global Voices at the WOMAD festival in 2015 and 2016

She is a Fellow of the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) to enrich society through ideas and action, and the RAI (Royal Anthropological Institute) where she serves as a member of the RAI Film Committee that organises biennial film festivals

Raminder is part of the new editorial collective for HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory that was reorganised in 2019. She is also the former Associate Editor (now Editorial Board) for the journal, Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, and Journal of South Asian Studies; on the Advisory Board for the open-access journal, Media Theory; and a part of the editorial board for the Amsterdam University Press series, Media, Culture and Communication in Migrant Societies.

Raminder combines her research interests with creative activities. She has made a film with research participants and edited by Tarun Jasani, Dishoom India, based on her research and book on comics books and youth cultures with Saif Eqbal. It was premiered at The Steps in the RSA and Pinter Studio, QMUL as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science.

She has written several scripts for theatre productions and workshops with diverse communities.

Lalon: Heart of Madness is based on the legendary Bengali philosopher, poet and mystical singer Lalon Shah and his message for communal and gender equality. It was produced as filmed theatre due to COVID-19 restrictions in 2020..

Terror is based on the brave stand taken by Faraaz Ayaaz Hossain against violent insurgents in a Dhaka cafe in July 2016.

Silent Sisters is based on research including interviews and workshops with British Asians about the partition of the South Asian subcontinent in 1947, migration and refugees. Silent Sisters was performed again alongside a new play, Brothers Unhinged, to focus on the partition of both Punjab and Bengal, and their legacies in 1980s Britain. An exhibition on the partition plays alongside the stories, photographs, and objects of British Asian migrants with a history of partition in their families was arranged at the Crawley Tree Museum in June 2018.

Bodies is based on people's stories and experiences of cancer in Sussex. The psychodrama combines tragedy with comedy, myth with reality.

Mishti Gals is based on the creative lives of single British Asian women in East London and actively involved young people in production outputs as part of A Season of Bangla Drama.

Raminder wrote Fair's (Not) Fair! when working on Ben Rogaly's AHRC Fellowship, Places for All?, which was based on about 100 oral history transcripts collated by Ben Rogaly and Kaveri Qureshi in Peterborough. www.placesforall.co.uk

She has also made three short films based on the workshops, rehearsals and performances with young people and professional actors:

(1) Fun Fear about kaleidoscopic experiences and stories about the funfair.

(2) Peopleborough - an audio-visual stroll through people's lives, histories and interracial relations in Peterborough.

(3) Turning the Mirror about dreams and reflections on birth, death, trouble and peace.

Her other plays produced by Chandica Arts include Draupadi’s Robes, Bullets through the Golden Stream, Futures, Spirit of the Age, and Pregnant Pauses. Enig-Mas was based on the work of the revolutionary writer and musician, Kazi Nazrul Islam, and produced by Mukul and Ghetto Tigers.

Experience

  • –present
    Professor of Anthropology and Cultural Studies, University of Sussex

Publications

  • 2014
    Arts and Aesthetics in a Globalising World. ASA Monographs, 51, co-editor
  • 2013
    Atomic Mumbai: Living with the Radiance of a Thousand Suns,
  • 2013
    Mapping Changing Identities: New Directions in Uncertain Times, co-editor
  • 2009
    Censorship in South Asia: Cultural regulation from Sedition to Seduction., co-editor
  • 2005
    Bollyworld: Popular Indian Cinema through a Transnational Lens., co-editor
  • 2005
    Diaspora and Hybridity., co-author
  • 2005
    Performative Politics and the Cultures of Hinduism: Public Uses of Religion in Western India,
  • 1999
    Travel Worlds: Journeys in Contemporary Cultural Politics, co-editor