Faculty at School of Humanities and Social Sciences

Iman Mitra

Iman Mitra

Associate Professor

School of Humanities and Social Sciences


Contact Information

History of the economic discipline; Economic History and Political Economy of South Asia; Urbanization, migration practices and informal economy in South Asia; State and non-state networks of dissemination of economic knowledge, especially in colonial and postcolonial contexts; Relation between economic rationalities and governmental reason

2015, Ph.D., Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, and Jadavpur University

2007, Master of Science, University of Calcutta

2005, Bachelor of Science, Presidency College, Kolkata

2017-2018

Assistant Professor, Centre for Development Practice and Research, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Patna

2016-2017

Post-Doctoral Research Associate, Max Weber Stiftung and Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Delhi and Kolkata

2014-2016

Research Associate, Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, Kolkata

2016, Postdoctoral Fellowship with the M. S. Merian-R. Tagore International Centre of Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences (ICAS-MP) in the module 'History as a Political Category' at the Institute of Economic Growth, New Delhi

2008, Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR) Doctoral Fellowship at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta

2006, Abhijit Raha Memorial Scholarship for securing highest marks in the paper 'History of Economics' at the Masters level in the University of Calcutta

  1. Iman Mitra, 'Public Health, Migrant Workers and a Global Pandemic: Towards a New Politics of Life', Refugee Watch: A South Asian Journal on Forced Migration, Vol. 57 (June 2021), 1-13.
  2. Iman Mitra, 'The Interrupted Becoming of a City: Patna in the Census of India, 1901-31', Journal of Migration Affairs, Vol. 1, No. 1 (September 2018), 87-110.
  3. Iman Mitra, 'Exchanging Words and Things: Verncularisation of Political Economy in Nineteenth Century Bengal', The Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. 53, No. 4 (October-December 2016), 501-31.
  4. Iman Mitra, 'Recycling the Urban: Migration Settlement and the Question of Labour in Contemporary Kolkata', Economic and Political Weekly (Special Issue on Migration and the Neoliberal City) Vol. LI, Nos. 26 & 27 (June 25, 2016), 55-62.

  1. Iman Mitra, Ranabir Samaddar, Samita Sen (eds.), Accumulation in Postcolonial Capitalism (Singapore: Springer, 2016), ISBN 978-981-10-1036-1.
  2. 'Iman Mitra, Marx's Theory of Rent: A 'Speculative' Reading? in Achin Chakraborty et al (eds.), 'Capital' in the East: Reflections on Marx (Singapore: Springer, 2019), 153-70, ISBN 978-9813294677.
  3. Iman Mitra and Mithilesh Kumar, 'Logistical Hubs and the Look East and Act East Policy: The Case of Kolkata and Its Port' in Ranabir Samaddar and Anita Sengupta (eds.), Global Governance and India's North-East: Logistics, Infrastructure and Society (London and New York: Routledge, 2019), 137-59, ISBN 9780367728311.
  4. Iman Mitra, 'Financialisation of Infrastructure and the Construction of a 'Seamless Asia' in Ranabir Samaddar and Anita Sengupta (eds.), Global Governance and India's North-East: Logistics, Infrastructure and Society (London and New York: Routledge, 2019), 88-107, ISBN 9780367728311.
  5. Iman Mitra, 'Urban Planning, Settlement Practices, and Issues of Justice in Contemporary Kolkata' in Ranabir Samaddar (ed.), Migrant and the Neoliberal City (Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2018), 47-73, ISBN 9789352872909.
  6. Iman Mitra, 'Spatialization of Calculability, Financialization of Space: A Study of the Kolkata Port' in Brett Nielson, Ned Rossiter and Ranabir Samaddar (eds.), Logistical Asia: The Labour of Making a World Region (Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 47-68, ISBN 9811341265.
  7. 'Introduction' (coauthored with Ranabir Samaddar and Samita Sen) in Iman Kumar Mitra, Ranabir Samaddar and Samita Sen (eds.), Accumulation in Postcolonial Capitalism (Singapore: Springer, 2016), 1-24, ISBN 978-981-10-1036-1.
  8. 'Life, Labour, Recycling: A Study of the Waste Management Practices in Contemporary Kolkata' (coauthored with Debarati Bagchi) in Iman Kumar Mitra, Ranabir Samaddar and Samita Sen (eds.), Accumulation in Postcolonial Capitalism (Singapore: Springer, 2016), 149-163, ISBN 978-981-10-1036-1.

  1. Iman Mitra, 'Marx's Theory of Rent: A Speculative Reading', Policies and Practices 94 (February 2018), 19-32.
  2. Iman Mitra, 'Finance Capital and Infrastructure Development: The Asian Context', Policies and Practices 86 (December 2017), 1-15.
  3. Iman Mitra, 'Kolkata as a Logistical Hub with Special Reference to the Kolkata Port' (coauthored with Mithilesh Kumar), Policies and Practices 78 (December 2016), 17-33.
  4. Iman Mitra, 'Urban Planning, Settlement Practices and Issues of Justice in Contemporary Kolkata', Policies and Practices 72 (October 2015), 16-31.

  1. Stuck between the authentic and the popular', The Telegraph, 19 July 2020.
  2. 'From wonder to desire: Encounters between India and the West', The Telegraph, 20 November 2020.
  3. 'Uncommon voices', The Telegraph, 30 April 2021.
  4. 'Fables of false glory' The Telegraph, 29 October 2021.
  5. 'A bugbear named nationalism', The Telegraph, 8 April 2022.
  6. 'Resurrecting liberalism', The Telegraph, 23 September 2022.
  7. 'An earnest lamentation', The Telegraph, 18 November 2022.

  1. The Island of the Day After: Digital Epidemiology, Artificial Intelligence and a Futuristic Governmentality' in a panel titled 'Techniques of Epidemiological Governance', Intarnational one-day workshop on The Long 2020 organised by the -Institut fur die Wissenschaften Vom Menschen, Vienna, and the Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, Kolkata, India, 7 October 2021.
  2. 'Researching Experience, Archiving the Vernacular: An Experiment in Early-twentieth-century' in a panel called 'Thinking the Vernacular: Democracy, Nationalism, Archive, and Politics', Conference on 'Decolonising Archives: Rethinking Canons: Writing Intellectual Histories of Global Entanglement', Department of History, University of Cambridge, UK, 24 March 2021.
  3. 'Public Health, Migrant Workers, and a Global Pandemic: Towards a New Politics of Life' in a panel called 'Migrants, Refugees and Public Health in the Time of an Epidemic', Fifth Annual Research & Orientation Workshop & Conference on Global Protection of Migrants & Refugees, Calcutta Research Group, Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (RLS) and Institute for Human Science, Vienna (IWM), Kolkata, India, 20 November 2020.
  4. Module Lecture on 'Neoliberalism, Migrant labour, and the Burden of the Epidemic', Fifth Annual Research & Orientation Workshop & Conference on Global Protection of Migrants & Refugees, Calcutta Research Group, Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (RLS) and Institute for Human Science, Vienna (IWM), Kolkata, 17 November 2020.
  5. 'Public Health, Migrant Workers and Global Pandemic: From Social Crisis to a Crisis of the Social' in an online Research Symposium on Public Health and Migrant Workers organised by Calcutta Research Group, Rosa Luxemberg Stiftung and Institute of Human Sciences, Vienna, 20 August 2020.
  6. 'Archiving the Vernacular', Conference on 'The Idea of the Archive' organised by the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Shiv Nadar University, Delhi, India, 8-9 March 2019.
  7. 'The Interrupted Becoming of a City: Patna in the Census of India, 1901-31', National Conference on Migration at the Centre for Development Practice and Research, TISS, Patna, India, 27 May 2018.
  8. 'Marx's Theory of Rent: A Speculative Reading', International Conference on 'Capital in the East: Marx's Capital after 150 Years' organized by Calcutta Research Group, Institute of Development Studies, Kolkata, Jadavpur University, Presidency University and the Department of Economics, University of Calcutta, India, 30-31 January 2018.
  9. Benoy Sarkar and the Bangiya Dhanabijnan Parishad, Invited Lecture, Department of Political Science, Presidency University, Kolkata, India, 10 January 2018.
  10. 'The Rise of Vernacular Economics in Twentieth Century Bengal: Benoy Sarkar and the Bangiya Dhanabijnan Parishad', Department of History, Shiv Nadar University, India, 9 October 2017.
  11. 'Between Historicity and Contextuality: Bangiya Dhanabijnan Parishad and Vernacular Economics in Early Twentieth Century Bengal', Workshop on 'Language, Region, Knowledge: Colonial Disciplines to Indian Social Sciences', Institute of Economic Growth (IEG), New Delhi, India, 4-5 May 2017.
  12. 'The Politics of Race and Caste in P. C. Mahalanobis' Early Writings', Workshop on 'Indian Social Sciences and the Vernacular/s: Disciplinary Histories and the Politics of Knowledge', Institute of Economic Growth (IEG), New Delhi, India, 9 February 2017.
  13. 'Biplob, Pratibiplob o Arthaneetir Itihas (Revolution, Counter-revolution and the History of Economics), Workshop on 'Counter-revolution, in Theory and in History of Thought' organized by the Bengali journal Alochona Chakra and the Indian Council for Social Sciences Research (ICSSR), Jadavpur University, Calcutta, India, 31 January 2017.
  14. 'Rental Economy of a City: Calcutta Improvement Trust and Urbanization in the Twentieth Century', International Conference 'The City as a Site of the Political: Themes in Urban History, Infrastructure and Culture', Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, India, 15-16 December 2016.
  15. 'Spatialization of Calculability, Financialization of Space: A Study of the Kolkata Port', Workshop module 'Logistics of Asia-Led Globalization: Infrastructure, Software, Labor' at the International conference on 'InterAsian Connections V', Seoul National University Asia Center, Seoul, South Korea, 27-30 April 2016.

  1. The Long 2020, Iman Mitra, Institut fur die Wissenschaften Vom Menschen, Vienna and Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, Kolkata, INR 70000, 6 months.
  2. Migration and Forced Migration Flows: Its European-Asian Dimensions, Iman Mitra, Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group and Institut fur die Wissenschaften Vom Menschen, Vienna, INR 50000, 6 months.

  • Migration, Urban Studies and Refugeehood, Member, Mahanirnan Calcutta Research Group, 2019-present.