1st Edition
Neighbourhoods and Neighbourliness in Urban South Asia Subjectivities and Spatiality
This volume examines urban South Asia through the ideas of neighbourhood and neighbourliness. With a focus on the affective socio-spatial and sensorial experiences of non-metropolitan, small and intermediate cities, the chapters in the volume look at neighbourhoods as a key to exploring the textures of urban life. Bringing together scholars from a variety of disciplines including sociology, anthropology, urban studies, planning, and social history, the book highlights urban heterogeneity and contemporary transformations in South Asia. It discusses the linkages between urban lived spaces and social life; memory, migration, and exile; and the city and its society through practices of everyday life in neighbourhoods. With studies from Sri Lanka, Nepal, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and India, the volume addresses a wide range of issues pertaining to urban experiences in their regional specificities and in a broader context of the Global South.
This book will be useful to scholars and researchers of urban sociology, anthropology, urban studies, planning and development, social history, political studies, cultural studies, geography, and South Asian studies. It will also interest practitioners and policymakers, architects, planners, civil society organisations, and thinktanks.
Chapter 1. Neighbourhoods and Neighbourliness in Urban South Asia: An Introductory Outlook
Sadan Jha and Dev Nath Pathak
Part I: Spatial Subalternity
Chapter 2. Becoming Urban: Subjectivities and Collective Lives in Gurgaon’s Urban Villages
Mukta Naik
Chapter 3. Neighbourly Nilphamari: Mediated Relationships in Bangladesh
Ratan Kumar Roy and Dev Nath Pathak
Chapter 4. Reclaiming Neighbourhoods through Informal Temporalities: Pettah, Sri Lanka
Kelum Palipane and Anoma Pieris
Chapter 5. From Growing Up in Durbarthok to Living in Kathmandu and Back: Places and Multiple Belonging in Nepal
Binit Gurung
Part II: Memory, Personal Experiences and Life History
Chapter 6. The Life and Times of Vijaya baji in Panjrapol: A Biography of a Lived Neighbourhood
Gauri Bharat
Chapter 7. In the Neighbourhood of Memory: Sensuous Space of Banglagarh, Darbhanga
Sadan Jha
Chapter 8. Reframing the Para? The ‘Muslim’ Neighbourhoods of Kolkata
Anasua Chatterjee
Part III: Politics of Othering and Stigma
Chapter 9. The Biharis of Orangi Town, Karachi: Experiences of Belonging and Neighbourliness Maliha Khan
Chapter 10. Invisible Refugee Neighbourhoods of Lucknow: Redefining the Neighbourhood as Gu'āṇḍha and Gali Môhollā
Anjali Gera Roy
Chapter 11. Neighborhood of Resilience and Hope: The Making and Re-making of Wanathamulla Nihal Perera, Nirmani Liyanage and Asanka Senadeera
Biography
Sadan Jha is Associate Professor at the Centre for Social Studies, Surat, India.
Dev Nath Pathak is a founding faculty member of Sociology at South Asian University, New Delhi, India.
