Dr Sundeep Lidher

Born and raised in West London, Sundeep read Modern History at St Andrews and Modern South Asian History at Oxford. Her PhD at Cambridge (2021) explored the evolution of British citizenship and immigration policy in the years between 1945 and 1962. This work interrogated policy developments in Britain within a broad imperial and global context, and as part of a longstanding global framework of mobility controls on colonial-born subjects and citizens. Sundeep is developing this research for publication. 

Before joining King’s in 2020, Sundeep was Research Associate (History) on the AHRC-funded research project Beyond Banglatown, an interdisciplinary collaboration between the universities of Cambridge, Manchester, and LSE (2018-2020). This study explored the history and contemporary landscape of the Bangladeshi-owned ‘Indian’ restaurant trade on Brick Lane in East London.

Over the years, Sundeep’s public history work has sought to raise the visibility of British histories of migration, empire, and race in secondary schools. Sundeep co-led the multi-award-winning Our Migration Story  education project (2016-2018), a partnership between The Runnymede Trust, the UK’s leading independent race equality think tank, and the universities of Cambridge and Manchester. The project was recipient of The Guardian University’s Research Excellence Award (2019), The Royal Historical Society’s Public History Prize (2018) and the Community Integration Research Champion Award (2017).

Most recently, Sundeep acted as Co-Investigator on an ESRC-funded interdisciplinary research project ‘Exploring Racial and Ethnic Inequality in a Time of Crisis’ (2020-2022), where she led a workstream on the role of teacher training in delivering more ‘diverse’ British histories in schools.  

Research interests and PhD supervision

• Mobility control
• Subjecthood and citizenship
• Racism, law, and policy
• Black and Asian Britain
• Migration
• Britain and the World

Sundeep’s historical research is driven by an interest in the racialised inequalities of British subjecthood and citizenship; the global dispersal of the tools and technologies of mobility control; extra-national dimensions of British policymaking on citizenship and immigration; state racism and resistance to it; the movement of Black and Asian British subjects to Britain, and across the Empire and Commonwealth, in the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the relationship between British, Imperial and World histories.

Currently co-first supervisor on two PhD projects (the first on the development of the Coloured Alien Seamen Order of 1925 and the second on colonial and Commonwealth students at King’s College London from 1920 to 1970), Sundeep welcomes research students interested in working on any of the above areas.

Sundeep is a founding member of the History and Law research hub at King’s.

Teaching

Undergraduate teaching:

• Migration, Citizenship, and the Nation in Twentieth Century Britain
• Black Lives in Modern London (co-taught with the Black Cultural Archives)
• Global Diasporas
• Interrogating the Archive

Postgraduate teaching:

• Contemporary British History MA
• World History MA
• Advanced Skills for Historians

Expertise and public engagement

Having co-led the pioneering Our Migration Story project (2016-2018), the national #TeachRaceMigrationEmpire campaign (2020), and ESRC-funded research on history teacher education (2020-2022), Sundeep continues to collaborate with exam boards, teachers, schools, subject associations, policymakers, and academics on the issue of history curriculum reform in schools. As part of this work, Sundeep has accepted invitations to speak at key academic and public events across the country and on various national media platforms.

Sundeep sits on the advisory board of the AHRC-funded project Remaking Britain: South Asian Networks and Connections, is advisor to the British Library’s Voices of Partition project, a member of the Institute of Historical Research’s EDI Forum, a member of the Historical Association’s Higher Education Committee, a member of the Migration Museum’s Education Committee, co-convenor of two Institute of Historical Research seminars (‘Britain at Home Abroad since c. 1800’ and ‘Black British History’), and co-convenor of an interdisciplinary online ‘Migration History’ seminar series.

She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, an Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and an affiliated member of the Centre for the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE).

Selected publications

Articles:

• Alexander, C. & Lidher, S. (forthcoming) ‘British Bangladeshis’ in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History, ed. David Ludden (New York: Oxford University Press).
• Lidher, S., Bibi, R., & Alexander, C. (2023) ‘Reframing British history: teacher education after Black Lives Matter’, Ethnic and Racial Studies.
• Lidher, S., Mcintosh, M., & Alexander, C. (2021) 'Our Migration Story: History, the National Curriculum, and Re-Narrating the British Nation', Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 47:18, 4221-4237.

Policy Papers:

• Lidher, S., Alexander, C., & Bibi, R. (2023) ‘Making History Teachers: The role of teacher training and teacher education’. Runnymede Trust and Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE).
• Alexander, C., Carey, S., Lidher, S., Hall, S. & King, J. (2020) 'Beyond Banglatown: Continuity, Change and New Urban Economies in Brick Lane', The Runnymede Trust.

Blogs:

• Lidher, S. & Elias, H. (2020) 'Teaching British Histories of Race, Migration and Empire: a resource for teachers and learners', On History.
• Lidher, S. (2020) 'Beyond Banglatown: The Rich History of Brick Lane’s Curry Restaurants', Race Matters.
• Lidher, S. (2020) '7 Actions to Change the History Curriculum', Race Matters.
• Lidher, S. (2019) ‘Our Web Resource Wins Guardian University Award’, Race Matters.
• Lidher, S. (2018) 'The Windrush Generation: British Citizenship and Mobility Control', Media Diversified.