Meera Venkatachalam's project explores how Africans - and connections with the broader Africana world - played a critical role in shaping trans-regional networks, political and religious institutions, and markets in postcolonial Mumbai (known as Bombay before 1996). Using historical and anthropological methodologies to focus on the flows of people, ideas, religion, and commodities, this study positions Mumbai within a series of overlapping trans-regional networks spanning the Indian and Atlantic Ocean Worlds from the 1940s onwards. Mumbai’s interactions with the Africana world have led to the development of new spatial topographies, created new knowledgescapes, and given rise to new trading infrastructures, which have hitherto received little attention. This research highlights the stories of the human actors who have influenced these interactions, while also aiming to bridge themes in South Asian Studies and African Studies.
Recent Publications include:
Common Threads: Fabrics made in India for Africa (African Studies Centre Leiden, 2020), co-authored with Renu Modi & Johann Salazar.
India’s Development Diplomacy and Soft Power in Africa (Boydell & Brewer, 2021), co-edited with Kenneth King.
“African Pentecostalism in India: Being Born Again in the Diaspora”, Journal of Indian Ocean World Studies, 2022, 6 (1), 90-112.