Sarai, an interdisciplinary research and practice programme on the city and the media, at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, invites applications for short term studentships to facilitate preparation of research projects on contemporary urban life in South Asia. Applicants are asked to submit a bio data and short statement of research interests in this field.

Selected candidates will attend the City One Conference in 9-11th January, 2003, South Asia’s first conference on the urban experience. They will also participate in an orientation workshop, `Researching the contemporary city’. The studentship provides candidates Rs.10,000/- for the preparation of a preliminary research proposal to be presented at a workshop in June 2003. Travel expenses, board and lodge, as well as a modest per diem, will be provided to the candidates for attending the workshops and the Conference. The candidates may be from any social science or humanities discipline, and could be enrolled in an MA, M.Phil or Ph.D programme.

Sarai would like to encourage research in the following areas: Colonial Urbanism in South Asia, Architecture and Spatial transformations, Modernist Planning, Alternative urban visions, Migration and demographic transformations, Urban Memory and Narratives of Violence, Urban Ecologies, Urban Social Movements, New forms of social differentiation, Literature and Urbanism Cinema and the City Visual culture, The future of Public Space Media-Cities and Globalisation Labouring in the City.

Sarai would like to support a diverse range of projects, but would particularly like to encourage proposals which, while conversant with theoretical debates, have developed a strong sense of the research material, whether of archival/ethnographic/anthropological nature. We hope that, through this modest programme of support, we would encourage research in as yet underdeveloped fields. Last date for applications: 1 November 2002