Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences
Netherlands
fellow
Erica Wald
Home institution
University of London
Country of origin (home institution)
United Kingdom
Discipline(s)
Colonial and postcolonial history
Modern history
Social and economic history
Theme(s)
Cultural Studies
Identity
Inequalities, inclusion & Social Innovation
Post-colonialism
Fellowship dates
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Biography
Erica's current research project, Everyday Empire: Social Life, Spare Time and Rule, seeks to answer the question of how unofficial activities- social lives- shaped the British empire.
She is also involved in an ongoing collaboration which focuses on the history of the body in colonial Asia. She is the co-editor of Bodies Beyond Binaries in Colonial Asia (Leiden: 2024).
Her earlier work explored the emergence of social and imperial mind-sets and highlighted a colonial-decision making fuelled by a fear of the ‘lower orders’ (in particular, the army’s own European soldiers), sexual deviation, disease and mutiny. It shows how the measures employed by the state to deal with ‘vice’-driven health threats - high rates of venereal disease and alcohol-related illness- had wide-ranging and often surprising consequences, not simply for the army itself, but for India and the empire more broadly.
Research Project
Everyday Empire: Social Life Spare Time and Rule in Colonial India
Research questions: How did practices and understandings of ‘leisure’ and spare time shape colonial rule and understandings of India? How did shared leisure and segregated activities influence colonial rule?
Over the course of the long nineteenth century, spare time and leisure in colonial India was radically transformed, reflecting both political and social trends.
In the late eighteenth century, European officers frequently attended the nautch performances held in the ornate Calcutta homes of the Indian elite or played Holi with their sepoy troops. However, by the early decades of the twentieth century, these shared activities had been almost completely replaced by ones which were more strictly segregated, whether visits to the European playhouse or a hunt picnic organised by the tent club.
Erica Wald explores the ways in which leisure was central to empire – from informing understandings of India, to connecting its colonial servants. She suggests that a clearer understanding of the unofficial, everyday activities of those involved in the functioning of the empire is invaluable in developing our understanding of its operation.
Research Interests:
Social History of Medicine; Social History of Alcohol & Drugs; Leisure & 'Timepass' in South Asia; Social History of the Military; East India Company armies