In this episode, Miranda talks to Professor Gurminder Bhambra. Miranda first came to Gurminder’s work while editing Anthropology and Tax, having been searching for data on tax and colonialism.

Gurminder’s research on how taxes paid in the colonies to the British state helped build the British welfare state offered exactly the historically grounded story Miranda wanted to highlight — one that moves us away from simple models of how taxes work.

The episode also explores the story of Gurminder’s family and the broader struggle for migrants to belong when their contributions are rendered invisible — a theme that feels especially urgent in today’s political climate, in which the rights and obligations of different communities are often scrutinised, and not always generously.

Links to Gurminder’s work:

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