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Mr Mohammad Ahmar Alvi
PhD Student

Research area(s)

  • Dalit Studies and Literature
  • Food Studies/ Literary Food Studies
  • Resistance Studies
  • Identity Studies
  • Hindu Studies
  • Queer Studies

Research Interests

Ahmar's primary research interests lie in critically studying the modes and methods of literary representations of victuals and gastronomics--insinuating dialectics of resistance, identity, human complexity, repressed desires, power struggles, the vindication of the marginalised, indefensibility of human experience, social positioning and dislocation, and sexual and body politics. 

He is also interested in examining the role of the State in promoting cow politics in India. This includes how certain communities are demonised, and the members are lynched for their dietary and culinary choices, the impact of food profiling and food fascism in advancing a broader religio-political agenda, and how disparate cultural narratives complicate the debates surrounding the polemics of vegetarianism and non-vegetarianism in the country.

Moreover, he also takes an interest in exploring and proposing interdisciplinary frameworks based on a diverse range of concepts, including resistance, identity, caste, purity and pollution, food, aesthetics, and culture. He aims to deepen the ongoing discussions surrounding the politics of inclusion and exclusion, manifestation of casteism, gastronationalsim, and individuals' rights to participate in institutional systems. 

Key publication on food and identity:

Nordstrum, Justin, ed. The Provisions of War: Expanding the Boundaries of Food and Conflict, 1840-1990. University of Arkansan Press, 2021. http://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1p2grb2.