Infrastructural Precarity, Livelihoods and Politics: Case of an Inner-city Notified Slum in Kolkata, India [InfraPreP]

My doctoral research investigated the socio-spatial transformation of an inner-city informal neighbourhood in Kolkata (India), associated with the idol-crafting practice for UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage nominated Durga Puja. It examined how idol-crafting as a cultural practice is shaped by and has shaped the built form and infrastructure of the neighbourhood. It traced how a failed redevelopment plan proposed by the local government, recent cultural policies and mounting tourism pressures have triggered spatial restructuring processes from within.

Findings highlight how the historic caste-homogenous neighbourhood is slowly being replaced by a commercial cluster of idol-crafting workshops, differentially shaped by wider relational geographies and growing consumer demands. At the same time, socio-spatial infrastructural systems within this informal setting approach breaking point. During the fellowship, a period of fieldwork will allow me to sharpen the focus on the precarious water and sanitation facilities in the neighbourhood. The planned activities during this fellowship will enable me to present participatory and ethnographic evidences of the idol-crafting community to a wide spectrum of audiences to have a direct impact on policy decisions.

I will write a monograph, two journal articles and a series of web-based publications for academic and wider audiences. I will hold a deliberative workshop in Kolkata to engage with research participants, community members and other stakeholders. The workshop will focus on the multiple barriers to access, such as caste, class, gender, age and tenure, and discuss what measures can be taken to address this in a post-COVID scenario.

Consolidated findings from my doctoral and fellowship fieldworks will contribute to ongoing debates around rights to infrastructure and citizenship in the social sciences, in addition to shedding light on human-infrastructure interactions in the informal neighbourhoods of the global South. Raising questions around the marginalisation and non-representation of creative communities in inner cities, my publications will be relevant to academics as well as policy-makers and practitioners engaged in the implementation, redevelopment or re-imagination of cities in South Asia.