Souvik Naha

As a historian of modern South Asia, I primarily engage with the formation of leisure cultures, and what they tell us about the global and transnational flows of culture. I have used the perspectives of cricket and the mass media to identify the forms of these flows in the context of India. These case studies have helped me recast some of the notions associated with colonial power, postcolonial resistance, and cultural hybridity. To do so, I have specifically focused on hitherto unexplored cultural enclaves, transnational networks, and the paradoxes of reinterpretation.
I am currently working on my European Commission funded (844096 - SPORTDIPL) postdoctoral project on the role of sport in Britain-India encounters in the fields of international politics, migration and cultural exchange after India's independence. My project examines: (i) what the synergy between national governments and non-state actors such as sport associations, media persons, athletes and spectators reveals about sport as a tool of public diplomacy; (ii) the role of colonial hierarchies of race, ethnicity, gender and class in shaping postcolonial sport and its spectators; and (iii) the mobilisation of nationalism and national identity as a postcolonial strategy of building the nation through sport.
I am the Associate Editor of Sport in Society, Editor of Sport in History, and Book Reviews Editor of Soccer & Society.