Dr Anandi Ramamurthy
Reader in Post-Colonial Cultures
Summary
I am a Reader in Post-Colonial Cultures and Senior Lecturer in Media here at Sheffield Hallam University. My primary research interests are focused on critically analysing ‘race’ and postcoloniality in media and culture to challenge hegemonies and give voice to the voiceless.
My first book, Imperial Persuaders: Images of Africa and Asia in British Advertising analysed various conflicting and changing ideologies of colonialism and racism in British advertising. My most recent book, Asian Youth Movements in Britain. Black Star: Britain’s Asian Youth Movements was based on interviews with dozens of participants as well as a digital archive of materials. The development of the archive was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.
My interest in people’s histories has also led me to collect Partition stories in Pakistan to consider the role of not just fear and violence, but also class relations that were communalised in pre-partition Punjab.
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About
My primary research interests are focused on critically analysing ‘race’ and postcoloniality in media and culture to challenge hegemonies and give voice to the voiceless.
My first book, Imperial Persuaders: Images of Africa and Asia in British Advertising, analysed various conflicting and changing ideologies of colonialism and racism in British advertising. It revealed the historical and production context of many well-known advertising icons, interrogating the commercial interests of companies in order to understand more effectively their production of racialised ideologies
Since the publication of Imperial Persuaders, I have explored contemporary representations of the Global South to consider the racialised nature of images employed across a wide range of publicity including fair trade and charity images. I am currently engaged in collaborative research which explores self-orientalisation in India’s Nation Branding.
While critically engaging with hegemonic media representations, I have also sought to explore resistance to stereotyping and racism and to collect people’s histories. My most recent book explored the history of the Asian Youth Movements in Britain. Black Star: Britain’s Asian Youth Movements was based on interviews with dozens of participants as well as a digital archive of materials relating to the movements which has been collected and stored at www.tandana.org.
The development of the archive was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Jodi Burkett writes: ‘This book is a timely and important contribution to the growing field of historical literature on the 1970s and 1980s and, quite rightly, demands that we think again about the nature of black politics and activism and its location within wider discourses about British history and identity.’
My interest in people’s histories has also led me to collect Partition stories in Pakistan to consider the role of not just fear and violence, but also class relations that were communalised in pre-partition Punjab. This work was supported by the British Academy and will be published shortly by the Journal of Punjab Studies.
I am currently conducting research on representations of Palestine. A forthcoming article explores the visualisation of Gaza during the 2014 bombing by Israel. The strategies used by Palestinians to contest dominant narratives and representations of Palestinian history and Palestinians in general represents my current area of interest.
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Teaching
Department of Media Arts and Communication
Science, Technology and Arts
Media
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Research
- Communication and Computing Research Centre
- Cultural Communication and Computing Research Institute
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Publications