Travelling Ayahs in Britain: ordinary women in extraordinary circumstances

Dig Where You Stand has invited Dr Arunima Datta to lead an interactive workshop that focuses on a largely forgotten group in the story of movement and migration: South Asian travelling ayahs (servants and nannies), who travelled between India and Britain.

Delving into the stories of individual ayahs from a wide range of sources, Dr Datta will illuminate how to excavate histories of silenced actors of history. There will be workshop segments woven in with a talk, where Dr. Datta will work with the audience to show how even silenced histories can be made audible if we ask the right questions of the archival documents. The event will finally wrap up with a sensory journey into the past through some objects and recipes the ayahs brought over to Britain.