Agrarian Studies Colloquium: Aditya Ramesh "Water, fish, and energy: energy and agrarian democracy in south India c. 1920-1971"

The core of the Agrarian Studies Program’s activities is a weekly colloquium organized around an annual theme. Invited specialists send papers in advance that are the focus of an organized discussion by the faculty and graduate students associated with the colloquium.

This topic embraces, inter alia, the study of mutual perceptions between countryside and city, and patterns of cultural and material exchange, extraction, migration, credit, legal systems, and political order that link them.

It also includes an understanding of how different societies conceive of the spatial order they exhibit. What terms are meaningful and how are they related?: e.g., frontier, wilderness, arable, countryside, city, town, agriculture, commerce, “hills,” lowlands, maritime districts, inland. How have these meanings changed historically and what symbolic and material weight do they bear?

Meetings are Fridays, 11am -1pm Eastern Time.

Meetings will be held in a hybrid format, both on Zoom and in-person at 230 Prospect Street, Room 101.

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In Winter 2024, Aditya Ramesh joined the History Department after completing a Presidential Fellowship in Environmental History at the University of Manchester. Previously, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine at the same institution. His research primarily focuses on environmental history, agrarian history, and the history of science, technology, and medicine in South Asia. His ongoing book project, *Undercurrents: Dam, Delta, and the Making of a Regional Economy in South India*, explores the history of the Cauvery River, tracing its transformation into a major site for colonial and postcolonial infrastructure interventions. The project investigates the roles of various experts in managing the river, as well as the political and economic implications of its use over global crises like famines, the Great Depression, and World Wars. Aditya has also collaborated with international researchers on the Cauvery Delta, including a base at the French Institute of Pondicherry.

Dr. Ramesh’s next major research project turns to urban history, focusing on Madras, one of South Asia’s earliest colonial cities. This work departs from traditional historiography by organizing research around maps and mapping, exploring themes such as transport, ecology, health, and labor. Inspired by concepts like Anna Tsing’s *Feral Atlas* and Rebecca Solnit’s *Atlas* series, the project is structured more like an "Atlas" than a conventional monograph. This collaborative endeavor involves scholars from diverse fields, including urban planning, anthropology, geography, and architecture. Aditya works closely with Dr. Bhavani Raman, a historian of early modern India, and their joint research has been published in journals such as "Urban History" and the "Journal of Urban History". Additionally, Aditya has delivered talks on this research, including a presentation at the Roja Muthiah Library, a major repository of Tamil language materials.