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Humanity’s Urban Future
Online Course
A certificate Online Course on City was conducted from 15 February to 29 March 2025 under the CIFAR grant. It aimed at deliberations on making and unmaking of cities in South Asia and the world, issues of urban autonomy and sovereignty, struggles for rights and urban justice, as well as dominant stories that cities tell of themselves. The sub-themes of the Conferences have been a) City and Infrastructure, b) Labour and Economy, c) Climate Change and Urban Ecological Crisis, d) Urban Divides, e) Conflicts and Urban Protests for Justice, f) Images and Imaginations of the City in Transition.
The call for online applications was out by November 2024 and we received 80 applications from different institutes in the country and some from abroad as well. We had to go through a rigorous process of selection and finally 37 participants became part of the course, mostly research scholars from varied disciplines within the country and also abroad. Some were professionals – artists, journalists, development sector workers. The resource persons were from renowned Universities from abroad and within India as well. They offered lectures on various aspects of urbanisation and city making, especially deliberating on current contentions and discourses on City from the theoretical perspective of ‘urban virtues’; accumulation, rent and infrastructure; the burgeoning platform economy and informal labour; climate change and urban ecological shifts; protests, spatial justice and reclaiming urban public; organisation and unionisation of informal labour; cities in fiction and city fictions. The online course explored the process of urbanisation ideologically, sociologically, economically, and politically. It explored how cities have been built and rebuilt in the wake of violence, epidemics, climate disasters, modernisation and planning. It deliberated on “futuristic” and smart cities, cities of refuge and creativity, cities that are home to crime and labour mobilisation. The cities in focus were Southern cities across the globe but also occasionally referring to some Northern cities as per contexts. We are in the process of curating the online lectures and the videos will be uploaded on the website soon.
Poster for Application || Call for Applications || Concept Note || Poster for Online Course || Schedule || Participant's Profile || Resource Person's Profile |
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