Dr Iqtedar Alam

  • Smuts Research Fellow in Commonwealth Studies
  • Centre of South Asian Studies
Dr Iqtedar Alam

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About

Dr Iqtedar Alam is a Smuts Research Fellow in Commonwealth Studies at the Centre of South Asian Studies. Trained in architecture and landscape archaeology, he examines the layered histories of South Asian landscapes with a particular interest in the water urbanism of the early modern and colonial periods. His doctoral research in archaeology at the University of Cambridge investigated the hydraulic systems of Mughal Delhi (1639–1857), situating the city’s urban and spatial practices within the broader Persianate world. Before beginning his PhD, he worked as an architect and designer in India. He served as an Assistant Professor of Architecture and Urban Studies (2011-2021) at Jamia Millia Islamia (A Central University) in New Delhi where he led undergraduate and postgraduate teaching in architectural histories, landscape studies, and urban regeneration. During this period, he also contributed to government-funded research projects in India that examined riverscapes and cultural ecologies.

Research

Iqtedar's research interests include water urbanism, landscape histories, and built-heritage studies of early modern and colonial South Asia. His current book project, 'The Anicut Empire', explores how anicuts reshaped the landscapes between the Cauvery and Godavari rivers in colonial India. By reinterpreting historical maps as archives of hydraulic and environmental change, the project develops a monograph-cum-atlas that uses computational methods to reconstruct historic landforms and annotate them with climate stress markers such as landcover changes, sea-level shifts and crop variability.

Key publications: 

  • Alam, I. (2025), Landscape as Museums: Staging and Framing Kashmir’s Historical Geography, in Cultural Geographies: Heritage, History, Art & Nature, edited by Geeta W. Dua, Landscape Architecture Foundation, India, pp. 23-29. Also, published in LA Journal of Landscape Architecture, India (2022), Issue 72, pp. 11-17.
  • Alam, I. (2025), 'Roots & Routes Method’ in Urban History: Situating South Asia in the Global Context, in World Histories Connected, Issue 22_2, George Mason University Press, USA.
  • Alam, I. (2023), Towards an Architecture of the Indian Ocean: Mapping Syncretic Grammar of Coastal Cities & Architecture through Ibn Battuta’s Water Journeys (1342-1347) in Cosmopolitan Cultures and Oceanic Thought, Edited by D.M. Menon and N. Zaidi, Routledge India Publications, pp. 152-167.

Teaching and supervision

Iqtedar is involved in teaching courses on water urbanism and landscape histories of colonial South Asia. He also runs an Option Module titled 'Maps as Archives: Landscape, Urbanism & the Society in South Asia' in the Lent Term.