Dr Edward Simpson
BSOC.SCI(MANCHESTER) PHD(LONDON)
Overview
Department of Anthropology and Sociology
Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology
Centre of South Asian Studies
Member, Centre of South Asian Studies
Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies
Member
- Name:
- Dr Edward Simpson
- Email address:
- es7@soas.ac.uk
- Telephone:
- 020 7898 4481
- Fax:
- 020 7898 4699
- Address:
- SOAS, University of London
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG - Building:
- Russell Square: College Buildings
- Office No:
- 589
- Office Hours:
- Term 2 - Research Leave, email to make appointment
Biography
I am interested in the anthropologies of history, religion, and natural disaster in India. At SOAS, I teach courses on research methodology, migration and diaspora, and the ethnography of South Asia. I co-edit a book series called Society and History in the Indian Ocean published jointly with Hurst and Columbia University Press.
Teaching
Courses Taught
- Dissertation in Anthropological Research Methods
- Ethnographic Research Methods
- Research Methods in Anthropology
PhD Students supervised
- Amit Kisku, State, Forest and People: The Changing Relationship and its Impact on the Modern Forests of India
- Khadija Chennoufi-Gilkes, Insiders and Insider-Outsiders: A transnational discourse-network study of the Algerian Kabyle Amazigh cultural movement via social media
- Maddalena Chiellini,
I am interested in supervising students seeking to undertake anthropological research in South Asia, as well as those wishing to work elsewhere in the world who are interested in the broader themes of history, religion, development and natural disaster.
Research
I am interested in the anthropology of history, religion, and disaster; and the traditions of Indian Sociology.
Most of my research has been conducted in Gujarat, western India, with a particular focus on the regions of Kutch (also spelled Kachchh and Cutch) and Saurashtra.
Work in this area has taught me that ethnography is best framed by history and contemporary politics. For centuries, the region has been part of the cultural and economic networks of the Indian Ocean, while on land various experiments have been undertaken with truth, religious nationalism, and violence. Consequently, conceptions of borders, boundaries and identity feature strongly in my work.
I have written about the politics and social organisation of seafaring Muslims, their conceptions of self, learning, society and the political. In Gujarat, this has meant exploring their empirical and emotional connections to the broader Muslim world, as well as their relationship to Hindu nationalism and India.
I am currently completing a monograph on ‘What earthquakes make us think’. This work is based on research conducted over the last ten years on the consequences of devastating earthquake in Gujarat. Here, I am concerned with the sociology of the aftermath, rather than with the more straight-forward appraisal of development paradigms. I am particularly interested in the concentration and consequences of extreme emotions associated with catastrophic disaster, notably terror, the ‘sublime’, nostalgia and avarice, as well as in ideas about death, memory and retribution.
Recently, the ESRC has granted funding for a major project on the changing role of the village in post-colonial South Asia (2011-2014):
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
Simpson, Edward (2006) Muslim society and the western Indian Ocean: The seafarers of Kachchh. London: Routledge.
Edited Books
Simpson, Edward, ed. (2011) Society and history of Gujarat since 1800: A select bibliography of the English and European language sources. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan.
Simpson, Edward and Kapadia, Aparna, eds. (2010) The idea of Gujarat: History, ethnography and text. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan.
Simpson, Edward and Kresse, Kai, eds. (2007) Struggling with history: Islam and cosmopolitanism in the western Indian Ocean. London: Hurst and Company.
Book Chapters
Simpson, Edward (2012) 'The anthropology of a "Disaster Boom" economy in western India.' In: Luig, Ute, (ed.), Negotiating disasters: Politics, prepresentation, meaning. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, pp. 235-252.
Simpson, Edward (2012) 'The anthropology of aftermath.' In: Fardon , Richard and Harris, Olivia and Marchand, Trevor and Nuttall, Mark and Shore, Cris and Strang, Veronica and Wilson, Richard A., (eds.), The Sage Handbook of Social Anthropology (vol. 2). London: Sage, pp. 329-338.
Simpson, Edward (2011) 'Kutch and the sea.' In: Varadarajan, Lokita, (ed.), Gujarat and the sea. Vadodara: Darshak Ithias Nidhi, pp. 537-548.
Simpson, Edward (2008) 'Sailors that do not sail: Hinduism, anthropology and parochialism in the western Indian Ocean.' In: Basu, Helene, (ed.), Journeys and dwellings: Indian Ocean themes in South Asia. Hyderabad: Orient Longman, pp. 90-120.
Simpson, Edward (2008) 'Whay Bhatiyas are not "Banias" and why this matters: Economic success and religious worldview among a mercantile community of western India.' In: Lachaier, Pierre and Clémentin-Ojha, Catherine, (eds.), Divine richesses: religion et économie en monde marchand indien. Paris: École français d’Extrême-Orient, pp. 91-111.
Simpson, Edward and Kresse, Kai (2007) 'The history of Bhuj as told by its own historians.' In: Simpson, Edward, (ed.), Struggling with history: Islam and cosmopolitanism in the western Indian Ocean. London: Hurst, pp. 93-124.
Corbridge, Stuart and Simpson, Edward (2006) 'Militant cartographies and traumatic spaces: Ayodhya, Bhuj and the contested geographies of Hindutva.' In: Raju , Saraswati and Kumar , Satish, M and Corbridge, Stuart, (eds.), Colonial and post-colonial geographies of India. New Delhi: Sage, pp. 70-84.
Simpson, Edward (2006) 'The rituals of rehabilitation: Rebuilding an urban neighbourhood after the Gujarat earthquake of 2001.' In: De Neve, Geert and Donner, Henrike, (eds.), The meaning of the local: Politics of place in Urban India. London: Routledge, pp. 206-231.
Simpson, Edward (2004) ''Hindutva' as a rural planning paradigm in post-earthquake Gujarat.' In: Zavos, John and Wyatt, Andrew and Hewitt, Vernon, (eds.), The politics of cultural mobilization in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 136-165.
Articles
Parry, Jonathan and Simpson, Edward (2011) 'David Pocock's Contributions and the legacy of Leavis.' Contributions to Indian Sociology, 44 (3). pp. 331-359.
Simpson, Edward (2011) 'Blame Narratives and Religious Reason in the Aftermath of the 2001 Gujarat Earthquake.' South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 34 (3). pp. 421-438.
Simpson, Edward (2009) 'The influence of Hindu nationalism on rural reconstruction after the 2001 Gujarat Earthquake (translated into Chinese by Dong Wenqi).' China Non Profit Review, 3 . pp. 82-112.
Simpson, Edward and de Alwis, Malathi (2008) 'Remembering natural disaster: Politics and culture of memorials in Gujarat and Sri Lanka.' Anthropology Today, 24 (4). pp. 6-12.
Simpson, Edward (2007) 'State of play six years after Gujarat earthquake.' Economic and Political Weekly, XLII (11).
Simpson, Edward (2007) 'The changing perspectives on three Muslim men on the question of saint worship over a 10-year period in Gujarat, western India.' Modern Asian Studies, 42 (2 & 3). pp. 377-403.
Simpson, Edward (2006) 'Apprenticeship in western India.' Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 12 (1). pp. 151-171.
Simpson , Edward (2006) 'The state of Gujarat and the men without souls.' Critique of Anthropology, 26 (3). pp. 331-348.
Simpson , Edward and Corbridge, Stuart (2006) 'The geography of things that may become memories: The 2001 earthquake in Kachchh-Gujarat and the politics of rehabilitation in the pre-memorial era.' Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 96 (3). pp. 566-585.
Simpson, Edward (2005) 'The 'Gujarat' earthquake and the political economy of nostalgia.' Contributions to Indian Sociology, 39 (2). pp. 219-249.
Simpson, Edward (2003) 'Migration and Islamic reform in a port town in western India.' Contributions to Indian Sociology, 37 (1 & 2). pp. 83-108.
Monographs
Kresse, Kai and Simpson, Edward (2011) Between Africa and India: Thinking comparatively across the western. Working Paper. ZMO Working Papers 5.
Simpson, Edward (2008) Was there discrimination in the distribution of resources after the earthquake in Gujarat? Imagination, epistemology, and the state in western India. Working Paper. London: London School of Economics and Political Science.
Simpson, Edward (2008) The rise and fall of collective public action in the aftermath of the Gujarat Earthquake of 2001. Working Paper. London: London School of Economics and Political Science.
Simpson, Edward The politics of loss, alienation and nostalgia after the ‘Gujarat’ Earthquake. Working Paper. Colombo: International Centre for Ethnic Studies.
