This episode features an interview about the social history of cannabis in colonial South Asia. Utathya Chattopadhyaya is Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and coeditor of the journal The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs. Utathya's new book is Ganja Matters: Empire and the Pursuits of Cannabis in British India, which was recently published by the University of California Press. Presenting a sweeping social history of ganja in colonial India, the book examines the collision between different ways of viewing, using, and valuing cannabis products – namely, those of local religious, cultural, and political groups on the on the one hand and those of colonial administrators on the other. Through a multi-species analysis, the book uses ganja to explore broader themes of taxation, governance, transgression, and social identity. The book is available as an Open Access title here: https://www.luminosoa.org/books/m/10.1525/luminos.276
","author_name":"International Institute for Asian Studies – IIAS"}