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Transnational Infrastructures of Resistance: From Empire to Occupation
The project directly speaks to (and against) the Geography discipline by unsettling the idea of infrastructure from our normative understanding.
25 May 2021
The project directly speaks to (and against) the Geography discipline by unsettling the idea of infrastructure from our normative understanding. By doing so, it project aims to critically analyse what kind of infrastructure is required for resistance in urban spaces. Recent resistance movements across the globe highlight spatial occupation as an important praxis to exert rights. Here occupation becomes essential for two reasons. Firstly, in urban areas, spatial occupation heightens the visibility of a movement by extending the right to resist for broader political imagination. Secondly, spatial occupations also counter the dominant spatial logics of hegemonic appropriation of power. Building on this, the project aims to analyse what kind of infrastructure was developed for the spatial occupation in recent protest movements in India. To do so, the project focuses on Anti-CAA protest and Framer’s protest in India. The collective will conduct ethnographic interviews in India and London.
The interviews in India will be focused on farmer leaders, student groups and community members. The collective will also conduct 10 interviews in London, particularly with groups who were engaged in protest movements in London. London interview will involve the diasporic Punjabi community and South Asia Solidarity Network members.
As an outcome, the project will develop a website on ‘Infrastructure of Resistance’ which will archive the knowledge that will be generated from the project and will act as a knowledge repository for scholars and activists interested in resistance movements, solidarity networks and similar thematic areas. The project also aims to produce 5-part vernacular podcast series as part of Confronting Caste podcast series that is currently hosted by King’s India Institute.
- Team
Collective for Critical South Asia Praxis which includes Dr Ufaque Paiker (Ashoka University, India); Dr Raktim Ray (UCL), Dr Srilata Sircar (Kings College, London)
- Funder
Antipode Foundation Grant Right to Discipline
£10,000 Duration: 1 year; DPU, UCL will be the host institution.