Workshop organised by CRIT (Collective Research Initiatives Trust) and SARAI/Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi on 27-29 December 2006 at the All-India Institute of Local Self-Government, Mumbai

In recent years, there have been numerous attempts to understand and grapple with the transformation of contemporary urban spaces and environments across India. It is now widely recognised across spheres as diverse as academic social science, urban planning and architecture, social work and activism, and the arts and cultural industries that there has been a conceptual vacuum in understanding the city in India since Independence. The estrangement of both urban scholars and practitioners from their object of understanding remains acute.

Recently, both inside and outside institutions, new practices grouped as “urban research” or “emerging urbanism” have renewed the call for new methodological inquiries and collaborative frameworks to understand the changing conditions and landscapes of urban India. The primary sites for this emerging urbanism have been both the urban spaces and built environments in which projects, experiments and interventions have been undertaken, as well as the discursive and conceptual spaces in which new ideas and theories are still being discussed and worked out.

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