Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Kultur-, Sozial- und Bildungswissenschaftliche Fakultät - Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften

OF FLYOVERS AND MUSLIM MOHALLAS: MAPPING THE POLITICAL HORIZONS OF BOMBAY

Horizons are affective artifacts, constantly framed through the practices of built form, but also situated on the existential sensibilities of society & human life. Appearing as views, bypasses, persistence, or imaginations; the horizon folds through the ontic, the political, the every-day and the virtual. This paper explores some locations of the architecture of these horizons, the multiple nodes in which the creation, contestation and bypassing of horizons occur in the so-called 'native town' of Bombay. My fieldwork, undertaken in the Muslim Mohallas located here, explores how the construction of a 'flyover' provided new political and bureaucratic horizons to an already stigmatised area of the city. I ethnographically explore this horizon, through forms of by-passing, contestation and surveillance.

SAROVER ZAIDI is Assistant Professor at the Jindal School of Art and Architecture, Sonipat, India. She studied philosophy at St. Stephen's College, Delhi and sociology and social anthropology at the Delhi School of Economics. Her research at the Max Planck Institute Germany has focused on religious architecture, everyday life, and urban space in Bombay.  Zaidi co-runs a site on urbanisms called CHIRAG DILLI (https://chiraghdilli.com).  She has previously taught at the School of Planning and Architecture and Ambedkar University, Delhi. 

Check out Zaidi's exciting appearance on Ted Talks India!!

https://www.ted.com/talks/sarover_zaidi_what_are_the_places_where_we_find_happiness