Mamta Sachan Kumar is a PhD Candidate in Gender Studies and Anthropology at the School of Culture, History & Language, Australian National University. Her research explores South Asian diasporic identities through the community of her childhood – the Sindhi merchant diaspora in Kobe, Japan. Her PhD project focuses on the everyday lives and roles of Sindhi housewives in migrant community-building and place-making. Mamta has also explored and written about historical ties between India and Japan through the life of Ras Behari Bose and Japan’s involvement in the Indian Independence Movement.

Mamta’s work is an existential journey that probes ideas of memory, home, identity and belonging, to make sense of who she is in the world. She approaches her ethnography through storytelling and poetry. Her latest publications include a poem titled, ‘Fries for Friendship and the Untoward Nature of Identity’ in Sindhi Tapestry: An Anthology of Reflections on Sindhi Identity and the humorous essay, ‘Why Do Rich Sindhi Women Need a Kitty Group? Space, Sociality and Status Production among Upper-Class Housewives in Singapore’, featured in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies.