Event Region : South Asia

Namita Vijay Dharia is an associate professor at the Rhode Island School of Design. She is an architect and anthropologist who studies urban political economy and ecology in India. Her work combines ethnographic methodologies and anthropological theory with the scalar, spatial and material approaches of architecture and design. […]

Join us for a conversation with Sanjeev Vidyarthi, a professor of city design in the department of urban planning and policy at the University of Illinois Chicago. He will discuss interim findings from an ongoing, long-term project studying who is building cities in contemporary India and how. Employing a pragmatist approach, the talk will share broad outlines of a sub-project that seeks to explore the nature and scope of practices leading architects and urban designers are innovating to engage with the rapidly growing ranks of India’s city-builders such as state institutions, public agencies, emergent entrepreneurs, real-estate developers, place-based communities, moneyed individuals, and religious movements.