Welcome

Marine Frantz, a PhD candidate in urban geography (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France), joined the Social Sciences Department in February 2022. Her research focuses on the dynamics of periurbanisation around the city of Pondicherry and other rural areas of Tamil Nadu, through the conversion of farmland to residential plots.

Jenni Balasubramanian is a Postdoctoral researcher from University of La Réunion, working on INTERREG project titled “PaTRIM-OI Cultural heritage in the Indian Ocean, from global to local: Tanzania, Reunion, India, Mauritius”. She is affiliated to the Social Sciences Department from August 2022. Her research focuses on the Indian indentured labourers from Madras Presidency to La Reunion which aims at understanding the Indentured system from the Indian perspective.

Padmavathy Krishnan joined the Social Sciences Department in August, 2022 as a one year Postdoctoral researcher. She holds a PhD in Ecology and Environmental Sciences, from the University of Pondicherry. Agroecology is her area of specialisation. She is working within the PATAMIL research project and has started working in mapping of groups, actors and sectors involved in organic agriculture in Pondicherry and its surroundings.

Renaud Colson, Associate Professor of law at the University of Nantes, France, joined the Social Sciences Department for one year in September 2022 as a CNRS Delegate. His research will map out the normative content of Indian environmental policy and reflect on the feasibility of legal transplants (such as the National Green Tribunal or environmental public interest litigation) from India to France and more generally from the Global South to the West.

Arnaud Natal is a PhD candidate in Social Sciences with a specialisation in development economics (University of Bordeaux, France). He joined the IFP in September 2022 for one year as a VIA to participate in the development of the ODRIIS — Observatory of Rural Dynamics and Inequalities in South India, IRD/IFP.

Diane Cachau joined the Social Sciences Department in September 2022 for one year as a visiting student. She is a PhD candidate in development economics from the University of Bordeaux. Her research focused on self-employed tenure security in developing countries.

In January and February, M.N. Muralikrishnan, Rinni K. Jayan, Ushus Uniikrishnan, and Sreeja M.S. joined the British Library Major Project EAP 1304 directed by Hugo David entitled “Palm-leaf manuscripts from the Śaṅkaran monastic institutions of Kerala”.

Cansu Gurkaya, doctoral student of the Centre d'Études de l'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud, École des hautes études en sciences sociales, arrived in February 2022 with an allocation de terrain from the EFEO and funding from the CEIAS and LabEx TEPSIS to spend 8 months in India working on her research project on Sustainable development in Auroville, a universal city in the making in south-India dedicated to the ideal of human unity.

In March, R. Bharathi joined the library team of the EFEO to help sort through the collection of books acquired from Ulrike Niklas, emeritus professor of the University of Cologne.

Alessandra Macri, who completed her Masters at the Catholic University of Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy, has been visiting the Pondicherry Centre of the EFEO to participate in the various reading sessions of Sanskrit literature and to work towards formulating a thesis proposal from July to 20th October 2022.

Sathish Kumar joined the Śivadharma project (ERC n° 803624) in May to work on the digitization of documents.

Olga Nowicka, who defended her doctorate from the Jagiellonian University, Krakow, and is now a post-doctoral fellow with the CSMC in Hamburg, came to India in May to continue her collaboration with the EFEO team in Kerala on the EAP Major project 1304, “Sanskrit and Malayalam Manuscripts from Śaṅkaran Institutions of Central Kerala”, and on the establishment of an open archive for manuscripts in Thrissur. She is also pursuing her study of hagiographies of Śaṅkara.

Within the framework of an MOU signed in January between the EFEO and the South Asia Institute (SAI), University of Heidelberg, Suganya Anandakichenin, M. Vigneswaran, M. Subramaniam, and M. Ramesh joined the Centre at different moments for work on the DFG project “Networks of Hindu temples in premodern South India: Narratives, Rituals and Material Culture” headed by Ute Huesken. M. Vigneswaran and Suganya Anandakichenin have been leading weekly reading sessions on a Tamil Kāncimāhātmyam and on a Maṇipravāḷam commentary on the Hastigirimāhātmyam respectively.

Joël Cabalion, is an associate professor at Tours University, and a researcher in sociology and anthropology at the CSH. He joined in September 2022. HIs research focuses since 2004 on issues of displacement and resettlement in the context of large infrastructural works in Central India, grounded in a longitudinal and ethnographic perspective using both quantitative and qualitative methods.

Baishakh Chakrabarti, is a postdoctoral fellow at CSH. He joined in September 2022. He is a historian specializing in economic, financial and community histories in late nineteenth and early twentieth century India. He has recently completed his PhD from the South Asia Studies Department at the University of Pennsylvania.

Kiran Bhatty, is a doctoral fellow at CSH. She joined the CSH in September 2022. She is currently pursuing a PhD at the EHESS, in Paris, France. Her research interest lie at the intersection of social policy and politics, encompassing issues of citizenship, social and economic rights, social justice and inequality, and state capacity and governance related especially to the education sector