James Mills (Edinburgh University)

updated: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 18:50:27 +0000

James Mills
Department of History / Centre of South Asian Studies
Edinburgh University
The William Robertson Building
50 George Square 
Edinburgh EH8 9JY   UK

Phone: 00-44-131-650-3763
FAX:   00-44-131-650-3784
email: J.H.Mills@sms.ed.ac.uk
email: 8930430@lewis.sms.ed.ac.uk

Description of work:

Research Interests:

1. 'The Lunatic Asylum in British India 1857 to 1880: colonialism,
medicine and power'.  The thesis was completed in 1997 and is part of an
ongoing project which hopes to explore the asylums of British India until
1947.  The problems of medical knowledge as source material and the
operation of medical discourse in the colonial context is one theme
explored in this project.  In addition the asylum in systems of colonial
power is considered in the context of British policing objectives. 
Finally the agency of those Indians inside the asylum, as staff and
patients, is considered. 

2. The colonial origins of Indian football.  This is a project which I am
working on with Paul Dimeo of Strathclyde University (Scotland, UK).  The
aim is to explain the fissured organisation of footballers from
communities in contemporary Britain with South Asian ancestors by
reference to the colonial history of the sport in British India. 
Preliminary work suggests that football, and sport in general, in colonial
India has a complex history, and could in one instance be the occasion for
displays of resistance to colonial power while in another it could
represent the hegemonic impact of British culture and morality. 

Teaching Interests:

1.Eric Hobsbawm and Social Banditry.  I have taught a course discussing
issues of banditry and policing in the colonial contexts of Australia,
Africa and India for a number of years at Edinburgh University. 

2.Environmental History of Colonialism.

3.Rudyard Kipling and the British in India.

Keywords not mentioned: psychiatry, psychology, confinement, Foucault,
soccer.