Abstract

Seasoned by the Sea is a community coastal cookbook. That is, it contains a collection of recipes, methods and stories about making seafood from the inhabitants of India’s Coromandel coast. For that reason, it is equally a book about the labour, ecology and the collective joy that ultimately makes the recipes delicious. During this event, one of the editors/curators of the book Niranjana R. will be in conversation with a panel of discussants on the themes of food cultures, translation, labour, race, and ecologies.

About the speakers

Niranjana R

Niranjana R is a co-editor of the blingual community cookbook from the Coromandel Coast in south eastern India, titled Neidhal Kaimanam/Seasoned by the Sea. Working with a collective of researchers, artists and activists based in Chennai and Pondicherry, she put together this cookbook, telling stories of life, labour and foodways along the seashore. Her work has been funded by the Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship (held at the LSE Department of Geography & Environment) and the Antipode 'Right to the Discipline' Grant. Niranjana teaches human geography at Queen Mary University of London, and holds a PhD in Geography from UCL.

Nedra Rodrigo

Nedra Rodrigo (she/they) is the founder of the Tamil Studies Symposium at York University, and the bilingual event series, The Tam Fam Lit Jam. She is a translator, academic, curator of multi-arts events and a past Chair of the Board of Directors for the Tamil Community Centre Project in Scarborough, Ontario. Nedra’s published translations include In the Shadow of the Sword (SAGE Yoda, 2020) and Vols 1-5 of the Devakanthan quintet Prison of Dreams (Mawenzi House 2021-2024). Her essays have appeared in Briarpatch, C Magazine, Studies in Canadian Literature, river in an ocean, and Human Rights and the Arts: Essays on Global Asia. Her translations of poetry have featured in Words and Worlds, Jaggery Lit, Still We Sing: Voices on Violence Against Women, Human Rights and the Arts in Global Asia, and Out of Sri Lanka. She has conducted workshops in community capacity building, literature, archives, and translation in schools, universities and community. She is the recipient of the English PEN/SALT award in Translation (2025) for her forthcoming book of Mohammed Rashmy Ahmed's poems Songs in a Time of Confinement (Adaivukaalathin Paadalkal) (trace press, 2026).

Naaz Rashid

Naaz Rashid is an Associate Professor in the School of Media, Arts and Humanities at the University of Sussex and Co-Director of the Sussex Centre for Cultural Studies (SCCS). Her research is broadly focused on the intersections of race, religion, gender and class. Dr Rashid is currently writing up a research project Eating the Other: Exploring the dynamics of London’s supper club scene which explores ideas of ‘authenticity’ within the broader phenomena of multiculturalism and gentrification. Dr Rashid also researches the experiences of the Bangladeshi diaspora in the UK and the US and is currently working on a book, Situated Citizenship: From Brick Lane to Little Bangladesh (UCL Press 2026). She is also the author of Veiled Threats: Representing the Muslim Woman in Public Policy Discourses (Policy Press 2016) and has written extensively about changing representations of Muslim women in the UK's counter terrorism agenda.

Chair

Srilata Sircar

Dr Srilata Sircar is Senior Lecturer in Critical Geography at King's India Institute. She received her doctoral degree in Human Geography from Lund University, Sweden in 2017. Prior to that she studied History at the University of Delhi and Development Studies at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai, India. She received the Antipode Right to the Discipline Grant in 2021 and the European Research Council Starting Grant in 2024. Dr Sircar's doctoral and postdoctoral work focused on subaltern urbanisation, the politics of caste and gender in urban infrastructure, and the archival practices of contemporary urban protest movements. She is currently leading the ERC funded project titled Critical Caste Geographies: Mapping the intersections of law, labour, and mobility (CRITCASTE). The project investigates the relationship between caste networks, international migrations, and social mobility. Her work has been published in leading journals such as Geoforum, Urban Geography, and Gender, Place and Culture. She is the host and producer of the Confronting Caste podcast.

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