Building a BUS: Technoscience and the emerging mode of organising interventions in Indian Cities

Abstract

Despite the growing economic footprint of cities, surprisingly little attention has been devoted to understanding the relation between technoscience and cities. The field of urban technoscience seeks to develop a body of knowledge to plan and design vital urban metabolic flows including water, waste, sanitation, movement, and energy. Underlying this field is the urgency to intervene in cities to solve urban problems in a scientific fashion through the development of infrastructure plans and designs. As vital sites for India’s current political economy, cities are now witness to systematic attempts to alter the technoscientific base of cities in the country. How is this shift happening in India? Drawing upon research in Science and Technology Studies (STS), history of urban planning, and allied social science fields, this paper characterizes the shift as BUS – Big Urban Science and Engineering. The paper provides an analysis of BUS and concludes with some implications of BUS for urban change in India.

Govind Gopakumar

Principal Investigator

Associate Professor and Chair in the Centre for Engineering in Society in the Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science at Concordia University.

Yogi Joseph

Doctoral Student

Yogi Joseph is a PhD candidate at Concordia University, Montreal. He is deeply invested in fostering a bottom-up understanding of transport infrastructure.