Dr Daisy Hasan

Daisy Hasan is an academic, media producer and novelist. Before joining the India Media Centre as Research Associate, she was engaged in a postdoctoral Knowledge Transfer project at the University of Leeds UK, where, in partnership with Shisha, the international agency for contemporary South Asian crafts and visual arts, she worked on Between Kismet and Karma: South Asian Visual Artists Respond to Conflict (www.shisha.net/projects/archive/between-kismet-and-karma/summary). The programme was a nationwide cross-art form event which showcased the work of cutting edge women artists from South Asia in the UK. Daisy also co-edited a special issue of the South Asian Popular Culture Journal (Vol. 9, No. 1, April 2011) which is dedicated to the ‘Beyond Borders’ (Leeds City Museum, 6th March 2010) symposium proceedings affiliated with the BKK programme.

Daisy has worked in both the state-owned and alternative media sector in India. She was a founder- member of the splitENDS media co-operative in Shillong and worked on a number of short films and video projects over 1999-2002. In the late 1990s she received the BBC’s Jasvinder Singh Memorial Fellowship to pursue postgraduate study at the AJK Mass Communication Research Institute, Jamia Millia Islamia. Her first novel The To-Let House, (Tara Books, 2010) was longlisted for the 2008 Man Asia Literary Prize and shortlisted for The Hindu Literary Prize, 2010.

Awards

• 2010 (October) – University of Leeds, the HEFCE Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) awarded collectively to the BKK Knowledge Transfer Team project team
• 2010 (January) – Research Councils UK Early Careers Researchers Travel Funding Grant
• 2010 (March) – Commonwealth Foundation, Civil Society Grant Responsive Grant awarded collectively to the BKK Knowledge Transfer Team project team
• 2008 – 2009, Sir Dorabji Tata Fellowship for Folklore Research awarded by the National Folklore Centre, India
• 2007-2008, Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT), New Delhi, Senior Media Fellowship Grant
• 2002 – 2005, International Fellowship Programme (Ford Foundation)

Daisy’s PhD (The Region Talks Back; Khasi Television and Identity in North-East India, Swansea University, 2007) looked at the way in which media globalization had empowered peripheral indigenous communities in a politically turbulent region to create innovative media and film programmes which challenged stereotypical representations on Indian national television. As Senior Media Fellow of the Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT, India, 2007) she extended her research into local media and film cultures of North-East India and examined their implications for democracy and citizenship in India today.

Daisy has designed and taught postgraduate courses on Hindi commercial cinema (‘Bollywood’) at the University of Leeds and Cardiff University. She has also taught on Development Journalism courses in Swansea University and been a full time lecturer on a pioneering undergraduate programme in Mass Communication and Video Production in India (St Anthony’s College, Shillong), designing and teaching courses covering areas such as traditional communication, media theory and history of the media in South Asia and media research methods. She has also supervised both studio – based and field based audio and video film production and postgraduate dissertations in the field. Her research interests are in film studies, media globalization, public service broadcasting, television and identity, audience research and postcolonial cultural production in South Asia.