Sraman Sircar is pursuing the PhD in Human Geography and Urban Studies in the Urbanisation, Planning and Development research cluster of the department. His research focuses on the grassroots impact of a World Bank sponsored climate change adaptation and poverty alleviation programme in the Bengal Delta in India. He holds a BA (Hons) in History from the Hindu College of the University of Delhi, a MA in Sociology from the Ambedkar University Delhi, and a MA in Sociology and Social Anthropology with a specialisation in Global and Urban Studies from the Central European University.

Before joining LSE, Sraman had work experience of half a decade as an interdisciplinary researcher in India and Hungary. He has worked as an Oral History Apprentice with The 1947 Partition Archive, a non - profit foundation that has grown out of UC Berkeley's Oral History Center, and helped set up the South Asia office of the Archive in Delhi in 2016. He has also worked as a Film Archivist at the Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archive in Budapest. Between 2019 and 2022, he served as a Cultural Heritage Consultant with the heritage tourism company called Immersive Trails in Kolkata. Moreover, Sraman has worked for a start-up incubator and a research institute of the Union Government of India in Delhi. Within his doctoral research, Sraman intends to investigate how climate change adaptation projects are shaping urbanisation, culture and political economy of the Bengal Delta in India.

Research interests

• Southern Urbanism
• Sustainable Development Goals
• Political Ecology of Climate Change Adaptation
• Politics of Infrastructure
• Climate Finance and Sovereign Debt

Research blogs

• The Squatter of the Taj: A British officer pretends to be the Mughal Emperor. Read post. 
• Demolishing the Taj: Ending the Saga of the Taj Committee. Read post. 
• The Saga of the Taj Committee: Preserving the Taj: A Tale of Colonialism, Conservation & Conquest. Read post.

Conference paper

• “Performing the Divine: Cultural Heritage and the Construction of Religious Identities in a Festival in Delhi” presented at the 25^th European Conference on South Asian Studies (ECSAS) at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, 24 – 27 July 2018.

Publications

• Sircar, S. “The Politics of Celebration: Interrogating the Secular Heritage of the Phool Waalon Ki Sair Festival in Delhi”, forthcoming as a free – standing article in the South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal (SAMAJ).

Scholarships

• LSE PhD Studentship
• CEU Master’s Scholarship (2017 – 2019)
• Ambedkar University Delhi’s Academic Merit Scholarship (2014 – 2016)
• Reserve Bank of India’s Golden Jubilee Scholarship (2009, 2011)

View Sraman's CV

Dr. Kasia Paprocki
Dr. Austin Zeiderman