TM 2: The Time and Space of Railways: Markets, Work, and Circulation in South Asia- An international workshop in honour of Ian J. Kerr

This workshop explores new directions of research into the social, economic, temporal, and spatial histories of South Asian railways. Professor Ian J. Kerr, the doyen of this field of research for many years, promoted, particularly through his generous support for younger scholars, an expansive approach to the writing of South Asian railway histories, which had been confined, in the latter decades of the 20th century, mainly to issues of capital investment and market integration. In the last two decades, this vision broadened with younger authors investigating social, cultural, and ecological consequences of railway construction and transport in late 19th- and early 20th-century South Asia as well as the impact of railways on South Asia’s circulatory regime at large. Ian Kerr’s own work, his research contributions as much as the important volumes that he edited, continued to emphasize the importance of understanding the social, cultural, and economic history of railways in broad and holistic ways.