Raminder Kaur

Professor of Anthropology and Cultural Studies, University of Sussex
Raminder Kaur was awarded her BA (Combined Honours) in Social Anthropology and Art and Archaeology and her PhD at SOAS, University of London. She has held post-doctoral research positions at Brunel University (ESRC funded project 'Reconsidering Ethnicity'), University of East Anglia (Getty Research Fellow) and at the University of Manchester (Simon-Marks Fellow). She was previously a Lecturer at the University of Manchester.

Raminder served on the Mayor's Commission for Asian and African Heritage (MCAAH) and was a member of the subsequent Heritage Diversity Task Force at the Greater London Authority. She co-authored the MCAAH report, Delivering Shared Heritage, which received the Eurocities Award for Cooperation in Gdansk, in 2007. (Eurocities is a membership network of major European cities that brings together local governments of more than 130 large cities).

She was a Trustee for Museums, Libraries and Archives London and Honorary Treasurer for the Association for Social Anthropologists (ASA) as well as ASA representative for the World Council of Anthropological Associations (WCAA). and Chair of the WCAA Ethics Taskforce.

Raminder combines her academic research with creative projects. She was Artistic Director of the theatre group, Chandica Arts, and is currently Chair of the arts organisation, Aldaterra Projects http://aldaterra.com/ and Artistic Director of Sohaya Visions www.sohayavisions.com https://twitter.com/SohayaV

She has written several scripts for theatre productions including Draupadi’s Robes, Bullets through the Golden Stream, Futures, Spirit of the Age, Pregnant Pauses, and Enig-Mas. Her play, Silent Sisters, is based on research including interviews and workshops with British Asians about the partition of the South Asian subcontinent in 1947, migration and refugees. Her play Mishti Gals is inspired by Mahesh Elkunchwar's classic, Sonata, but based on the lives of three British Bengali women living in East London.

She wrote Fair's (Not) Fair! when working on Ben Rogaly's AHRC/RSA/CPP Fellowship, Places for All?, which was based on about 100 oral history transcripts collated by Ben Rogaly and Kaveri Qureshi in Peterborough. www.placesforall.co.uk

She has also made short films based on the workshops, rehearsals and performances with young people and professional actors including a documentary with Tarun Jasani on Indian superheroism and youth cultures. www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRM-GdF4C5c&feature=youtu.be