Recent & Upcoming Events | Constituting Indian Urban Mobility

Apoorva's Talk in October 2023

Fri, 20 Oct 2023 14:00:00 +0000

Yogi Joseph

Our researcher Apoorva Rathod recently presented her research and fieldwork experiences as part of the Brown Bag Seminar Series, Dept of Geography, Planning & Environment. The seminar series brings together researchers to share their research with the members of the department. Below is an abstract for Apoorva’s talk:

While there has been a significant rise in investments in large public transit projects in Asian cities, the “first and last mile” of these transport journeys is largely ignored. In many cities of the Global South, informal transport systems often step in to fill these gaps in the transport journey. This study explores such informal transport systems and their connections with large public transit projects in two megacities in Asia—Delhi and Metro Manila—using a gender lens. Informal transport systems contrast greatly with the Metro and Mass Rapid Transit journeys in Delhi and Manila respectively. In both cities, gender and class relations mediate the mode of informal transport used. While gender relations become more visible while waiting for and riding in rickshaws in Delhi as compared with the Metro, they seem to disassemble in the jeepney ride in Manila. The different kinds of spatialities and temporalities surrounding large transport infrastructure systems create shifting gendered and classed identities, where the marginalized constantly negotiate their agency.

Yogi's Talk in October 2023

Fri, 06 Oct 2023 14:00:00 +0000

Yogi Joseph

Link to program: here
Link to YouTube video: here

Notes: The planning and implementation of mass rapid transit projects in Indian cities is steeped in discourses of aspiration and world-classness. Media coverage is key to the formation, circulation and reinforcement of such discourses. Based on his fieldwork in Kochi (IND), Yogi’s talk examined how rapidness and world-classness are encountered in the media coverage of the city’s metrorail project, as presented in both English and vernacular language newspapers. The metrorail project was portrayed as a significant stride towards achieving an aspirational "metro(politan)" status for Kochi. The pre-existing unevenness in the city's mobility infrastructure was painted as an obstacle, tackled through the introduction of a rail-based mass rapid transit system. Yogi emphasized that Ideas of rapidness pervade not just the transit solution, but also the coverage of the implementation and embedding of the metrorail project. Newspapers showcased the transformation of streets, transit spaces, and mobility modes as examples of Kochi’s new world-classness, often detached from everyday experiences of moving in the city. In summary, his presentation emphasized the importance of the language and discourse surrounding transit projects, while connecting them to wider conversations about the deployment of infrastructure in the ongoing world-classing of Indian cities.

Jacob’s Presentation in August 2023

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 14:00:00 +0000

Jacob presentation

Jacob Baby presented at the Royal Geographic Society (RGS) Annual Conference RGS-IBG in August 2023. Jacob’s presentation was part of the panel in New & Emerging Research in Historical Geography. The presentation titled, “Planning Histories on Indian Cities : Methodological Opportunities & Challenges” talked about Jacob’s research on writing planning histories especially transport planning history with aid of archives, planning documents, reports etc. The talk can be viewed here.

Sustainable Mobility Transitions in Asian Cities Writing Workshop & Keynote Address by Prof. Rashmi Sadana

Thu, 08 Jun 2023 14:00:00 +0000

Prof. Rashmi Sadana

The Sustainable Mobility Transitions in Asian Cities workshop was held on June 08-09 2023 at Concordia University, Montreal. This workshop hosted by Prof.Govind Gopakumar and team brought together several researchers working in this thematic to prepare their papers for submission to a special issue in The Journal of Environment Policy & Planning. Over two days, the workshop participants presented their paper outlines, provided feedback to the cohort and shared their writing tips and experiences with each other.

The first day of the workshop ended with a keynote presentation by Prof. Rashmi Sadana’s talk, “Metromobilities: Transforming Mobility in Delhi One Station at a time”. Her talk touched upon the various mobilities and materialities of the Dehli Metro, and how Delhi becomes a moving city with flows of bodies, capital etc. Her talk drew upon her extensive fieldwork in Delhi that included methods such as participant observation, ethnography and interviews with key planners and officials. The talk also focused on themes of the politics of planning, gendered mobilities, and transport infrastructures in a city like Delhi. Sadana’s book, “Metronama : Scenes from Delhi Metro” was also a key focus point in the talk.

Prof. Rashmi Sadana is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at George Mason University and directs the Urban Research Hub there. She is the author of The Moving City: Scenes from the Delhi Metro and the Social Life of Infrastructure (2022) and English Heart, Hindi Heartland: The Political Life of Literature in India (2012).

Prof. Rashmi Sadana

Prof. Govind Gopakumar

Manisha's Visit in March 2023

Fri, 17 Mar 2023 14:00:00 +0000

From L-R : Yogi Joseph, Sreelakshmi R, Manisha Anantharaman, Jacob Baby, Suvedh Jayavant

Prof. Manisha Anantharaman visited the team in March 2023. During the brief interaction, the researchers had a chance to present their current research and Manisha provided insightful feedback, while recounting her doctoral education experiences. She also spoke in detail about her fieldwork experiences chronicling the elite and everyday cyclists of Bangalore; the debates around active mobility and transport policymaking in Indian cities.

Prof. Anantharaman is an Associate Professor of Justice, Community and Leadership at Saint Mary's College of California in the Bay Area, where she teaches courses on environmental justice, sustainability and development through the lenses of postcolonial/decolonial theory, feminist geography and cultural sociology. More details about her work can be found at her website.

Review Workshop -- Constituting Indian Urban Mobility

Tue, 13 Dec 2022 09:30:00 +0000

The central objective of this research project is to critically investigate urban mobility in Indian cities in the rapidly evolving context of motorization. Several efforts ranging from infrastructural efforts such as Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Systems to governance and policy interventions such as urban experimentation (UE) and national urban transport policy (NUTP) have been (and are being) proposed. We seek to investigate these measures from an interdisciplinary perspective borrowing from urban geography, history of urban planning, technology policy, science and technology studies, urban design, and sustainability transitions, with an aim to assess the possibilities and potentials for equitable and just mobilities on Indian streets Zoom link.

The workshop will be an opportunity to review progress in the research project. In particular, it will allow funded PhD students to present their current thinking on their research projects, and solicit comments and feedback from invited workshop mentors.

We are extremely happy to welcome three scholars who bring a depth of expertise in urban studies, mobilities, and transport geography.

Dr. Sarah Moser, Associate Professor, Department of Geography, McGill University: Dr. Moser is an urban geographer whose work has critically engaged with the manifestation of power and ideology in architectures, urban plans and designs in Asian cities.
Dr. Aryana Soliz, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Geography, McGill University: Dr. Soliz is an urban ethnographer of mobilities whose work has examined the history and politics of velomobilities while working with cycling groups to advance just and sustainable movement in the town of Aguascalientes, Mexico.
Dr. Apoorva Rathod, Doctoral Graduate, University of Gothenburg, Sweden: Dr.Rathod’s work is located at the intersection of mobilities and children’s geographies.