On the basis of experiences of the first cycle and feedbacks from the community of researchers in the first year, a need was felt, this year,for a preliminary workshop. Most researchers also expressed the necessity for intellectual support in terms of articles, lectures on theoretical frameworks, suggestions regarding fieldwork and archival works. A preliminary workshop was organised in the second year of the programme in March 2004 to introduce students to the works of urban scholars, research methodology and resources. The interactive workshop included presentations on ‘Urban Experience’ (by Ravi Sundaram, Sarai-CSDS), ‘Researching City Scapes’ (by Solomon Benjamin, independent urban scholar), ‘Urban Environments’ (by Awadhendra Sharan, Sarai-CSDS) and ‘Labour, the Public and the City (by Prabhu Mohapatra, Department of History, Delhi University). The presentations concluded with a group discussion on ‘Research Methods and Resources’. A set of relevant articles theorizing the urban experience was compiled as a print ‘Reader’ and a CD, and distributed among workshop participants. At the end of the yearly cycle of the stipendship, research scholars were invited to present their six months’ research work in a two days workshop on 19th-20th of August 2004.
Abstracts
1. Manoj Kumar
Nabbe ke Dashak main Jansatta avam Navbharat Times main
Prakashit Film Samiksha ka Dastabejikaran avam vishleshan [Hindi]
This is a study and documentation of the representation of Hindi films in the form of reviews in two Hindi newspapers of the 1990s. In order to understand the dynamics of the ‘Bollywood’ film industry, the paper attempts to explore the ways in which images of the industry circulate in popular print medium.
2. Shvetal Vyas
Religion and Homosexuality in the City : Mahesh Dattani and the Urban
Vyas explores the images of the ‘urban’ in the worlds of literature and film. Focusing on the construction of communities of ‘others’ in terms of gender and religious cultures the project attempts to explore the complex and tortured terrain of urban social identities and literary production of these identities.
3. Jayani Bonnerjee
(Title not given, on neighbourhood pattern and urban planning in Calcutta)
The project explores the role of urban planning in the evolution of neighbourhoods in Calcutta. It attempts to explore the diachotomy between the planners’ ideology and people’s ideas about planning by focusing on the old Chinatown locality. It attempts to critique post-Independence urban planning by juxtaposing it with popular perceptions of evolving city spaces.
4. Sumit Roy and Saumya B.Verma
Architecture of Sociability : Workers Co-operative Coffee Houses of Delhi
The Tent and Mohan Singh Place Coffee House : A Case Study
This study looks at the history of a particular coffee house in Connaught Place, Delhi. The Study looks at specific coffee houses of Delhi. Exploring the rich history of this public space, it tries to raise questions on the memory of a city, its intellectual traditions and notions of ‘cultural heritage’.
5. Arpita Guha Thakurata
Mrinal Sen’s Calcutta : City as the Site for Regression and Radicalism
This paper looks at the dominant metaphors and imageries through which Calcutta of the 1970s and 1980s, has been mediated in the works of Mrinal Sen. What made it possible for these films to combine multiple perspectives with a complex, multi layered spatio-temporality in order to capture the unique texture and rhythm of the metropolis.
6. Dhara Radia
Institutional and Legal Framework for Urban Private Water Market: Ahmedabad City
The paper studies the urban private water market—its constituencies and networks—in Ahmadabad. It attempts to evolve an institutional and legal framework for the water market at the city level, conducive to an efficient water supply. The focus is on attempting to understand the existing regulatory structures at various levels and across different sectors.
7. Jerry Cherian
Living in Heritage : The Fontainhas Festival in Panjim
Cherian’s paper attempts to study public events like the Fountainhas Festival with a view to problematising concepts and engagements with the ‘past’. How do people who inhabit space interact with festivals and how do these cultural practices shape popular understandings of heritage and the collective memory of Goa.
8. Udita Bhargava and Meghana Singh
Digital Delhi
This paper is an ethnographic study of the experiences of people who work in the operation rooms of broad band inter-net service providers, radio studios, digital film making, digital photography and new media labs.
9. Syed Khalid Jamal
To study the work Culture at Fast Food Chains and its implications
Jamal’s paper looks at the working conditions in fast food chains in Delhi—the relationship between workers and the norms of the work place. Using participatory research methodology, the paper listens to and documents the desires and frustrations of employees, and maps their life histories.
10. Anupam Pachauri
Paigam Sarkar Bahadur Ka: Rajya aivam Samaj ka ishteharon dwara sanrachit ek portrait [Hindi]
The project looks at government advertisements and notices to understand the changing dynamics of both city cultures as well as notions of citizenship. Drawing upon a rich corpus of visual representational registers and her own personal experiences of the streets of Delhi, Anupam is trying to understand the complex processes of governmentality producing a whole network of identities in a city.
11. N.R.Levin
Body Odor as Social Order in Colonial and Post Colonial Kerala
The study explores modern urban Malaya’s obsession with fragrance and cleanliness. It problematises the ways in which images of fisherwomen produce a wide range of gendered responses and constitute a gendered urban field. The intricate relationships between odour, urban growth patterns and commodity cultures such as the tourism industry, are explored.
12. Sirisha Indukuri
Perspectives from Environmental Sociology/Anthropology for the Study of Urban Ecology
This paper looks at the politics of the discourse of urban ecology in India. It engages with the field of urban ecology as has developed in the first and the third world from a comparative perspective. Drawing on the emerging disciplines of environmental sociology/anthropology which have foregrounded new concerns, the study tries to offer a synthesis of divergent fields.
13.Osamazaid Rahman
Epidemics, Communities and the Colonial Urban Policy, Calcutta 1872-1941
Focusing on late nineteenth century Calcutta, the study explores the politics of colonial science and municipal administration on the issues of urban development and hygiene. The research seeks to link the spread of epidemics, popular perceptions surrounding disease and colonial state policy.
14. Aparna Malviya
The Future of Public Space (Lok Sthano Ka Bhavisya)
The study seeks to problematise the public space of the north Indian town of Allahabad. It attempts to look at different kinds of public space i.e. parks, cinema halls, playgrounds and such like as gendered spaces.