CfP: Between global aspirations and local realities - India’s cities in interdisciplinary perspective; at SAA, JNU; 26-28 Mar

Between global aspirations and local realities - India's cities in interdisciplinary perspective

26-28 March 2012

Venue: Auditorium, School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU, New Delhi

50 years jubilee conference of the South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University

With the rapid expansion of India's urban population, the environmental effects of India's largely unplanned cities are increasing, along with their cultural and political importance, and heir economic costs and potentials. Much urban research is concentrated on contemporary problems relating to infrastructure, planning, resource utilization and the like, in a rather compartmentalized fashion. However, to fully understand contemporary phenomena (and even more so suggestions toward their solution), historical depth and an understanding of the cultural dimensions of urbanization processes are equally important to the analysis of material challenges. This interdisciplinary conference aims at new, integrated approaches to urban research.

Panel Sessions
The conference is organised into six panel sessions:
Day 1
 Session 1: A Series of Historical Studies of two Megacities: Kolkata and Mumbai
 Session 2: Urban Environments
Day 2
 Session 3: Finance and Politics (covers the process of urbanisation in the context of the larger paradigms of 'development' and 'modernisation' and their impact on urban planning as well as (attempted) solutions to contemporary challenges).
 Session 4: Cities and their Hinterlands: The following session is dedicated to the (sometimes artificial) rural-urban dichotomy which these discourses have created, by looking at the connections between cities and 'hinterlands', and the way rural lifestyles and practices permeate and integrate into urban spaces and lifestyles.
Day 3
 Session 5: Imagining Urbanity (impact of globalizing urban cultures on contemporary Indian cities)
 Session 6: Imagining Urbanity (contd.)

Entry Open for Public after online registration at www.sai.uni-heidelberg.de/en/50years/registration-delhi

Further Details