The Center for South Asian Studies (CSAS) at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in partnership with Santa Clara University, invites you to a two-day academic workshop exploring the effects and imprints of the plantation complex on life and land in South Asia and beyond.

South Asia has had a long, complicated history with plantations. The indentured world that it engineered took every form of life under its control. With its intact economic, scientific, social, cultural aspects, the plantation complex survived into the post-colonial period in South Asia and among its historically displaced communities worldwide. UC Santa Cruz’s Dolly Kikon and Sanjay Barbora and Santa Clara University’s Mythri Jegathesan will convene a lively discussion on the sociality, science, and surveillance that structure the plantation worlds of 21st-century South Asia.

The workshop will take place from 9am-4:00pm on Thursday, October 9, with a dinner and reception to follow, and it will reconvene on Friday, October 10, from 9:30am-5:30pm.

For the full Conference Program and more information, please visit: https://csas.ucsc.edu/2025-26-events/

Photo credit: Dolly Kikon; Rani, Assam; 2023