BIO
Ritesh Kumar Jaiswal’s area of research interest includes non-indentured Indian migration, global migration systems, labour history and the Indian ocean rim. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D from the University of Delhi on the Aspects of Indian Labour Migration to Ceylon, Malaya and Burma under the Kangani and Maistry system (1850-1940). He intends to present a comparative analysis of the patterns, functions and nature of the largely informally regulated Kangani and Maistry systems of migration, which operated in the colonies across the Indian ocean, and guided the majority of Indian mobility during the colonial phase. He also intends to draw global parallels, particularly related to the content and substance of these migration systems, as well as broadly challenge and complicate the Eurocentric perceptions on non-European migration in Global migration studies.
At Harvard, he is a Fulbright-Nehru Fellow, 2017-18 at the Weatherhead Initiative on Global History (WIGH). Previously, he was Volkswagen Global History Fellow at the Centre for Modern Indian Studies (CeMIS), University of Göttingen, Germany. He has been a recipient of the “The History Project” Research grant, 2017, jointly given by the Centre for History and Economics, Harvard University, USA and the University of Cambridge, UK, and the Charles Wallace India Trust Research grant, 2017 to pursue his archival work in the UK. He had also been selected for the Indian Council of Historical Research’s Junior Research Fellowship, 2015.
He has taught as an Assistant Professor in the department of History of Hansraj College, Hindu College, Lakshmi Bai College and Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi, 2015-16. He has presented research papers at various International conferences, seminars, workshops at Universities in India, Singapore, Brazil, Poland, France, Mozambique, Germany and the USA, among others.