Dr Mallika Leuzinger
Mallika Leuzinger is a historian of visual culture and everyday media and technology, with a focus on South Asia. Her first book project traces the development of amateur and domestic photography over the twentieth century. Her second book project is concerned with archival practices and politics, and examines the claims people make on and through images.
Mallika joined the GHIL in November 2021. She holds a BA in History and MPhil in Gender Studies from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in History of Art from University College London. She has worked in the museum and heritage sector in India and Switzerland and was a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University, the Institute for Asian and African Studies at HU-Berlin, and University of Edinburgh.
Research Project
Archival Imaginaries and the Politics of History in South Asia
This project looks at the rise of internet platforms dealing in histories of the Indian subcontinent. It asks how, why and for whom these platforms constitute 'archives'. It examines the affective, material, visual and geopolitical registers they deploy and conjure, situating them in relation to institutional and/or stubbornly analogue collections; activist media projects; and popular history initiatives in Africa and the Middle East.
Research Project
Dwelling in Photography: Intimacy, Amateurism and the Camera in South Asia
This project traces the development of photography as an everyday practice in South Asia, focusing on women’s engagements with the camera in and beyond the household.
Responsibilities at the GHIL
- Research Fellow in Colonial and Global History
- Editor of GHIL Blog
Research Interests
- Postcolonial Modernity
- Visual and material culture in South Asia
- History of science and technology
- Media anthropology
- Gender studies
- Cultural Studies
Education and Academic Background
| 2021 | Research Fellow, Institute for Human Sciences Vienna (IWM) |
| 2020–2021 | Visiting Researcher, Department for Gender and Media Studies for the South Asian Region, IAAW, HU-Berlin |
| 2020–2021 | Fung Global Fellow, Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, Princeton University |
| 2015–2020 | PhD in History of Art, University College London |
| 2013–2014 | MPhil in Multi-Disciplinary Gender Studies, University of Cambridge |
| 2010–2013 | BA in History, University of Cambridge |
Fellowships, Grants, and Scholarships
| 2024 | Fellowship in 'Media and the Consitution of the Political', ICAS:MP, New Delhi |
| 2022 | Digital Scholarship Postdoctoral Fellowship, Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh |
| 2020 | Guest of the Institute Fellowship, Institute of Human Sciences Vienna |
| 2020–2021 | Fung Global Fellows Programme Postdoctoral Fellowship, Princeton University |
| 2018 | Peter E Palmquist Memorial Fund Grant for Historical Photographic Research |
| 2017 | Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art Research Support Grant |
| 2015–2018 | History of Art Research Studentship, University College London |
| 2013–2014 | Trinity Hall Research Studentship, University of Cambridge |
Honours and Distinctions
| 2021 | Bayly Prize for distinguished dissertation on an Asian topic, Royal Asiatic Society |
| 2013 | C.W. Crawley Prize for History, Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge |
Memberships and Affiliations
- “Constructing Alternative Pasts: (New) Sources and Methods”, Thematic Consolidation Group at M.S. Merian - R. Tagore International Centre of Advanced Studies, New Delhi
- “Beyond Social Cohesion: Global Repertoires of Living Together” (RePLITO), Berlin University Alliance 2021-2024
- Consortium for History of Science, Technology and Medicine (CHSTM)
- European Association for South Asian Studies (EASAS)
- British Association for South Asian Studies (BASAS)
Publications
Monographs and Edited Volumes
with Laura Spada Scalabrella (eds), Object – Graduate Research & Reviews in the History of Art and Visual Culture, 20 (2018)
Articles and Chapters
‘Amateurism, or the strange and radical kinship of the camera’ in Suryanandini Narain and Shilpi Goswami (eds.), Framing Portraits, Binding Albums: Family Photographs in India (New Delhi, 2025), 407-440
‘Projecting Empowerment: Camera Politics in and beyond Twentieth-Century South Asia’, Dastavezi – The AudioVisual South Asia, 4/1, (2022), 8-44 (Read here)
‘The Conviviality of Haleema Hashim’s Photography’ in Malavika Karlekar (ed), Women / Photography: Alkazi Newsletter (2020)
‘Seeing Double: The Photographic Lives of Debalina Majumdar and Manobina Roy’, PIX, Personal Paradigms Issue (2020), 86-93
‘“Ummijaan’s Pictures Were Nice”: Thinking About Haleema Hashim’s Photography’, Trans Asia Photography Review, 10/1: Writing Photo Histories (2019)
‘The Intimate Contract of Photography: Haleema Hashim’s Practice and its Afterlives’, Object – Graduate Research & Reviews in the History of Art and Visual Culture, 19 (2017), 29-54
with Mushtak Khan and Krittika Narula, ‘From Dumka to New Delhi: Conversations’, in Johannes Beltz, Marie Eve Celio-Scheurer and Ruchira Ghose (eds.), Cadence and Counterpoint: Documenting Santal Musical Traditions (New Delhi, 2015), 80-87
Reviews and Miscellaneous Publications
Exhibition curation
co-curated with Sabeena Gadihoke and Tapati Guha-Thakurta, Twin Sisters with Cameras: an exhibition of photographs by Debalina Mazumder and Manobina Roy, Jadunath Bhavan, Kolkata (24 February – 31 March 2022), India International Centre, New Delhi (13 – 27 August 2022), Lalit Kala Akademi, Lucknow (3 – 12 August 2023), Bangalore International Centre, India (18 – 25 October 2023), and Indian Photo Festival, Hyderabad (21 Nov – 5 Jan 2025), with an accompanying catalogue, Twin Sisters with Cameras, Jadunath Bhavan Museum and Resource Centre, Kolkata, 2022
Podcast
European Photographs in the Illustrated Weekly of India, Debalina Majumdar and Manobina Roy (1959-1960), EMPIRE LINES (2021) (Listen here)