Dr Caroline Osella
BA PHD(LONDON)
Overview
Department of Anthropology and Sociology
Reader in Anthropology with reference to South Asia
Centre of South Asian Studies
Member, Centre of South Asian Studies
Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies
Member
London Middle East Institute (LMEI)
Member
Centre for Gender Studies
Member
- Name:
- Dr Caroline Osella
- Email address:
- co6@soas.ac.uk
- Telephone:
- 020 7898 4427
- Address:
- SOAS, University of London
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG - Building:
- Russell Square: College Buildings
- Office No:
- 582
- Office Hours:
- Term 2 - Mondays 3-5pm
Biography
Migrant Labor in the Gulf - Summary Report
http://www12.georgetown.edu/sfs/qatar/cirs/MigrantLaborSummaryReport.pdf
London Middle East Institute – Table of Contents
http://www.lmei.soas.ac.uk/docs/lmei_meil_editions/69/April-May%202011%20Contents.pdf
Teaching
Programmes Convened
Courses Taught
- African and Asian Cultures in the Diaspora
- African and Asian Diasporas in the Contemporary World
- African and Asian Diasporas in the Modern World
- Comparative Study of Islam: Anthropological Perspectives (B)
- Comparative Study of Islam: Anthropological Perspectives B (Masters)
- Culture and Society of South Asia
- Ethnography of a Selected Region - South Asia
- Issues in the Anthropology of Gender
- The Anthropology of Gender
- Theory in Anthropology
PhD Students supervised
- Ambra Guarnieri, The native informant: the (im)possible perspective in postcolonial travel narratives
- Antonia Baum, Performing and Transforming Identities in Israel-Palestine (working title)
- Art Mitchells-Urwin, Representations of the Thai body and locality within Western-produced pornography: Interactions and responses from those within and outside of the pornographic screen
- Ayaz Qureshi, Pakistan's response towards HIV/AIDS: institutional complexity and the politics of policy
- Caitlin Robinson, Beauty Works: Cosmetic Surgery and Narratives of the Body Beautiful in Beirut (working title).
- Dorota Szawarska, Kinship – an ambivalent relation: the case of Sakhalin Korean Repatriates
- Mr Sahil Khan Warsi, Cultivating Hambastagi and Hamdardi: Personhood and Relatedness among Afghans in India (Working Title)
- Špela Drnovšek Zorko, Tracing the gendered ‘home’ through diasporic family stories of Yugoslavia.
Research
I have worked since 1989 in Kerala, south India and with Malayali migrants in the Gulf states. At SOAS, I teach courses on South Asian ethnography; on Gender, Sex and Sexuality; on ethnography of south Asian Islam; and Introduction to Social Anthropology.
My broadest research interest has always been the ways in which projects of identity crafting are brought back to the body, while socially constructed bodies are differentiated to reflect class, ethnic and gender differences and to forge social hierarchies.
Earlier work has explored social mobility and identity change within the context of social reform movements, consumption as a social mobility strategy, the production and performance of masculinities. Recently, I have explored Kerala as an Indian ocean region, questioning the nation bias, and have been interested in the ways in which Indian reformist Muslims are made marginal both in the nation and in ethnographic representation.
In my next writing project, just beginning, I hope to draw together my interests in Self : Other encounters and (especially non verbal) modes of self-making and inter-relating, in embodiment and the plastic self, and in processes of gendering / sexuation to explore some aspects of Kerala women's lives.
Expertise
For help in contacting SOAS academics and advice on services to business and the community, please contact SOAS Enterprise on +44(0)20 7898 4837 or email enterprise@soas.ac.uk.
For all press and media enquiries please call +44 (0)20 7898 4956/4135 or email comms@soas.ac.uk
Available for
Regional Expertise
- South Asia
Country Expertise
- India
Languages
Publications
Authored Books
Osella, F. and Osella, Caroline (2012) Islamic Reformisms across South Asia. Delhi: Cambridge University Press. (In Press)
Osella, Caroline and Osella, F. (2006) Men and Masculinities in South India. New York; London: Anthem Press.
Chopra, R. and Osella, Caroline and Osella, F. (2004) South Asian masculinities: context of change, sites of continuity. New Delhi: Women Unlimited an associate of Kali for Women.
Osella, Caroline and Osella, F. (2000) Social Mobility in Kerala: Modernity and Identity in Conflict. London; Sterling, Virginia: Pluto.
Book Chapters
Osella, Caroline and Osella, F. (2012) 'Migration, Networks and Connectedness Across the Indian Ocean.' In: Kamrava, M. and Babar, Z., (eds.), Migrant Labour in the Persian Gulf. Columbia University Press.
Osella, Caroline and Osella, Filippo (2011) 'Migration, Networks, and Connectedness Across the Indian Ocean.' In: Migrant Labor in the Gulf Working Group Summary Report. Doha: Center for International and Regional Studies, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, pp. 10-11.
Osella, Caroline and Osella, F. (2009) 'Vital exchanges: land and persons in Kerala.' In: Berti, Daniela and Tarabout, Gilles, (eds.), Territory, Soil and Society in South Asia. New Delhi: Manohar, pp. 203-239.
Osella, Caroline and Osella, F. (2008) 'Nuancing the migrant experience: perspectives from Kerala, South India.' In: Koshy, S. and Radhakrishnan, R., (eds.), Transnational South Asians: the making of a neo-diaspora. India: Oxford University Press, pp. 146-178.
Osella, F. and Osella, Caroline (2007) ''I am Gulf': the production of cosmopolitanism in Kozhikode, Kerala, India.' In: Simpson, Edward and Kresse, Kai, (eds.), Struggling with history: Islam and cosmopolitanism in the Western Indian Ocean. London: Hurst.
Osella, Caroline and Osella, F. (2005) 'The micro-politics of caste, or the political in the personal.' In: Viti, F. and Piasere, F. and Piasere, L., (eds.), Dipendenza e gerarchia. Siena: University of Siena Press.
Osella, Caroline and Osella, Filippo (2004) 'Malayali young men and their movie heroes.' In: Chopra, Radhika and Osella, Caroline and Osella, Filippo, (eds.), South Asian masculinities: context of change, sites of continuity. New Delhi: Women Unlimited, an associate of Kali for Women.
Osella, Caroline and Osella, F. (2004) 'Young Malayali Men and their Movie Heroes.' In: Chopra, R. and Osella, C. and Osella, F., (eds.), South Asian Masculinities. Context of Change, Sites of Continuity. Women Unlimited, pp. 224-261.
Osella, Caroline and Osella, F (2002) 'Once upon a time in the West? Narrating modernity in Kerala, South India.' In: Parry, Jacqui and Arnold, David, (eds.), Life Stories in South Asia. Oxford University Press.
Osella, Caroline and Osella, F. (2002) 'Introduction.' In: Osella, F. and Chopra, R. and Osella, C., (eds.), Masculinities in South Asia. Delhi: Kali for Women.
Osella, Caroline and Osella, F (2002) 'Points de vue malayalis sur l’inné et l’acquis’ (Eng. original ‘Some Malayali perspectives on the Nature: Nurture question’).' In: Bouiller, V and Tarabout, G, (eds.), Le Corps en Inde. (Paris), CNRS.
Osella, Caroline and Osella, F (2001) 'Contextualising sexuality: young men in Kerala, south India.' In: Manderson, L and Rice, PL, (eds.), Coming of age in South and Southeast Asia: youth, courtship and sexuality. Curzon Press ( London).
Osella, Caroline and Osella, F. (2000) 'The return of king Mahabali: the politics of morality in south India.' In: Fuller, C. J. and Benei, V., (eds.), The everyday state and society in India. Delhi: Social Science Press, pp. 137-162.
Articles
Osella, Caroline (2012) 'Marriage, matriliniy, migration, ambivalence: Malayali Muslim women’s experiences of shifting forms of family and household.' Culture and Religion . (In Press)
Osella, Caroline (2012) 'Desires Under Reform: Contemporary Reconfigurations of Family, Marriage, Love and Gendering in a transnational South Indian Matrilineal Muslim community.' Culture and Religion, 13 (2).
Osella, Caroline (2011) 'The Gulf and its Indian entanglements.' Middle East in London Newsletter, April . pp. 8-9.
Osella, Filippo and Osella, Caroline (2011) 'Migration, Neoliberal Capitalism, and Islamic Reform in Kozhikode (Calicut), South India.' International Labour and Working-Class History, 79 (S1). pp. 140-160.
Osella, Caroline (2010) 'Malayali Migant women’s perceptions fo the Gulf States.' Middle East Institute Viewpoints: Migration and the Gulf . pp. 30-32.
Osella, Filippo and Osella, Caroline (2009) 'Muslim entrepreneurs in public life between India and the Gulf: making good and doing good.' Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 15 (s1). pp. 202-221.
Osella, Caroline (2008) 'Introduction.' South Asia Journal of South Asian Studies, 31 (1). pp. 1-9.
Osella, Caroline and Osella, F. (2008) 'Food, Memory, Community: Kerala as both 'Indian Ocean' Zone and as Agricultural Homeland.' South Asia Journal of South Asian Studies, 31 (1). pp. 170-198.
Osella, F. and Osella, Caroline (2008) 'Islamism and Social Reform in Kerala, South India.' Modern Asian Studies, 42 (2-3). pp. 317-346.
Osella, Caroline (2008) 'Introduction: Islamic reformism in South Asia.' Modern Asian Studies, 42 (2/3). pp. 247-257.
Osella, Caroline and Osella, F. (2007) 'Muslim Style in South India.' Fashion Theory The Journal of Dress Body & Culture, 11 (2-3). pp. 233-252.
Osella, Caroline (2007) 'Muslim Entrepreneurs between India and the Gulf.' ISIM Review, 19 . pp. 8-9.
Osella, Caroline and Osella, F. (2006) ''Traditionalism' versus 'Innovation'. The Politics of Ritual Change in South India.' Purusartha, 25 . pp. 271-301.
Osella, Caroline and Osella, F. (2006) 'Once upon a time in the West? Stories of migration and modernity from Kerala, South India.' Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 12 (3). pp. 569-589.
Osella, Caroline and FOsella, (2004) 'Negotiating ritual change in South India.' Purusartha, Rites hindous: transferts et transformations (Journal of CNRS South Asia Research) .
Osella, Caroline and Osella, F. (2004) 'Scambi vitali: Houses, land, people and deities in Kerala, South India.' Etnosistemi. Special issue on 'Space and Territory in India' .
Osella, Filippo and Osella, Caroline (2003) ''Ayyappan Saranam': masculinity and the Sabarimala pilgrimage in Kerala.' Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 9 (4). pp. 237-244.
Osella, F. and Osella, Caroline (2003) 'Migration and the commoditisation of ritual: Sacrifice,spectacle and contestations in Kerala, India.' Contribution to Indian Sociology, 37 (1-2). pp. 109-139.
Osella, Caroline and Osella, F (2000) 'Migration, Money and Masculinity in Kerala.' The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, vol. 6 . pp. 115-131.
Osella, Caroline and Osella, F (2000) 'Movements of power through social, spiritual and bodily boundaries: aspects of controlled and uncontrolled spirit possession in rural Kerala.' Purusartha 21, La possession en Asie du sud: parole, corps, territoire . pp. 183-210.
Osella, Caroline (1999) 'Seepage of Divinised Power through social, spiritual and bodily boundaries.' Purusartha - La possession en Asie du sud:parole corps territoire, 21 . pp. 183-210.
Osella, Caroline and Osella, F (1998) 'On flirting and friendship: micro-politics in a hierarchical society.' Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 4,2 . pp. 189-206.
Osella, Caroline and Osella, F. (1996) 'Articulation of Physical and social bodies in Kerala.' Contributions to Indian Sociology, 30 (1). pp. 37-68.
