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J. Watumull Scholarship Report
By Rohan Kalyan
2008 J. Watumull Scholar Ph.D. Candidate, Political Science 
I would like to take this opportunity to express thanks to the J.
Watamull Scholarship Foundation for giving me the opportunity to conduct
dissertation research in India during the winter 2008-2009 in Delhi.
My dissertation research is trying to address the new urbanism that is
reshaping city life all across India. Using Delhi as a case-study, I
am exploring new practices of architecture, land-use, modes of
transportation, provision of urban infrastructure, and the
re-settlement of slum communities in order to map out how Delhi's
recent "urban renewal" is productive of new social and political
experiences that differ across a distribution of positions and
sensibilities. My basic premise is that space and movement are two
ways in which to think the re-shaping of urban subjectivities in
neoliberal India, such that the most important distinctions in
contemporary Indian society have to do with those who have or do not
have access to certain spaces, and those who are differently mobile
across urban space and up the social hierarchy.
In my time in Delhi, I have been affiliated with the Center for the
Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), a research center that houses
scholars of many different backgrounds, from all over India and the
world. Located in the serene Civil Lines neighborhood of north Delhi,
CSDS is also home to Sarai, an urban studies/new media collective that
hosts resident artists, academics, and activists concerned with
questions pertaining to the urban. In early February, Sarai played
host to renowned political philosopher Jacques Ranciere, whose early
work "Nights of Labor" had recently been translated by CSDS researcher
Abey Dubey into Hindi for the first time. Ranciere gave a lecture and
a workshop on his work on politics and aesthetics, and graciously
responded to queries and comments regarding his work. I had the
opportunity to sit with him and tell him about my own project and how
it is, in part, influenced by his theoretical interventions. The
whole experience was as inspiring as it was informative.
I would like to thank Sarai and the many intellectuals at CSDS for
providing stimulating conversations, insights, and anecdotes that made
me feel like a part of a dynamic intellectual community in Delhi. In
particular, I'd like to thank Ravi Sundaram, co-founder of Sarai, for
helping me adjust to my new surroundings and giving me valuable
contacts in the field of urban design and architecture. With these
contacts I was able to begin my research and branch out into new and
often times unexpected directions with my research.
Most of all, I'd like to thank the Watamull Foundation and the Center
of South Asian Studies for making all this possible. Due to this trip
to Delhi, I have forged life-long friendships with academics, artists
and activists in the Delhi area. I will always have a home in this
politically complex and historically rich city.
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Center
for South Asian Studies at
the University of
Hawai'i, Manoa |
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