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the city inside out

A blog on gender, citizenship and urban life

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    • Digitising the Periphery
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    • (Dis)Connected Infrastructures and Violence against Women (VAW)
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    • Learning from the Utopian City
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      • Mega-urbanization in the global south
      • The Illegal City: Space, law and gender in a Delhi squatter settlement
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Ayona Datta

I am Professor in Urban Geography in University College London. I have cross cutting expertise in postcolonial urbanism, smart cities, urban futures, and gender citizenship. I was awarded the Busk Medal from the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) in 2019 for my contributions to the understanding of smart cities through fieldwork.

News and events

I will be joining the upcoming REF 2021 (Research Excellence Framework) exercise as sub-panel member in Geography UoA. I am deeply honoured to be nominated by the Royal Geographical Society (RGS-IBG) as well as by REF2021 to accept this nomination. Look forward to reading the very best of British geography…Continue reading “News and events”

4th February 20214th February 2021
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Gendering Covid19 in India

This is a repost from Geography Directions by RGS-IBG By Ayona Datta, UCL In March 2020, the Indian Government imposed a…

22nd October 2020
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New Publication: Apps, Maps and War Rooms

Our Urban Pulse review article (written with Arunima Ghoshal, Anwesha Aditi, Arya Thomas and Yogesh Mishra) for Urban Geography “Apps, maps…

28th May 20203rd March 2021
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New Publication: Self(ie) Governance

My commentary article for Dialogues in Human Geography “Self(ie)-governance: Technologies of intimate surveillance in India under COVID19” has been published. This…

Films, videos and podcasts

Who and what makes the city?

I was invited by Futurium, Berlin to a panel discussion with the ex-Mayor of Bonn and Siemens on ‘Who and what makes the city’. Listen to our panel from 44mins into the recording.

 

Futurium: Who and what makes the city?

The fate of India’s small towns

Through the eyes of its residents, local activists and civil society members, City Forgotten tells the story of Malegaon, a small town near Nashik, Maharashtra, where its women and minorities continue to aspire for and claim their constitutional rights to education despite the lack of any real prospects for its future generations.

 

City Forgotten

Resilience decoded: Multiple dimensions of vulnerabilities in the smart city

UN ECOSOC, 2018 Integration Segment, 20th Plenary meeting. 1st May 2018, New York.


Please click here to listen to my talk.

United Nations ECOSOC Talk

Royal Geographical Society Podcast

Big data and digital technology are changing cities around the world – but are these new urban futures inclusive, or exclusionary? In this podcast we hear Dr Ayona Datta, Reader in Urban Futures at Kings College London discuss her research on India’s smart cities.

Click here to listen to the Podcast.

 

#AskTheGeographer: Can digital technology make cities safe and inclusive?

Fast Urbanism: Between speed, time and urban futures

Speed is fundamental to producing the modern city. Drawing upon recent research, the inaugural Professorial lecture examined what fast urbanism looks like from the margins of the Indian city. What happens when contrary to the promise of a fast and seamless urban life that delivers the gift of time, the urban poor are confronted with new struggles with mobility, new exclusions from digital and physical infrastructures, reorganisation of domestic life, as well as the dangers of sexual harassment and assault both online and offline.

Please Click Here to listen to my Inaugural on 21 January, 2020, UCL

Inaugural Lecture

COVID19…

Gendering Covid19 in India

4th February 20214th February 2021
This is a repost from Geography Directions by RGS-IBG By Ayona Datta, UCL In March 2020, the Indian Government imposed a Covid-19 lockdown that within 6 hours shut down all schools,…
COVID19…

New Publication: Apps, Maps and War Rooms

22nd October 2020
Our Urban Pulse review article (written with Arunima Ghoshal, Anwesha Aditi, Arya Thomas and Yogesh Mishra) for Urban Geography "Apps, maps and war rooms: on the modes of existence of “COVtech”…
Citizenship…

New Publication: Self(ie) Governance

28th May 20203rd March 2021
My commentary article for Dialogues in Human Geography "Self(ie)-governance: Technologies of intimate surveillance in India under COVID19" has been published. This article emerges in response to the proliferation of selfie based quarantine…
Citizenship…

Survival Infrastructures under COVID19 in India

12th May 20205th June 2020
This is a reposting of a Blog published in Geography Directions. I grew up hearing stories of Calcutta during the Bengal Famine of 1943 from my grandmother. The famine was…
Citizenship…

COVID19 may be an urban crisis, but India’s small cities will be its ‘collateral damage’.

30th April 202030th April 2020
THIS POST HAS BEEN REBLOGGED FROM 'LEARNING FROM SMALL CITIES' HERE On 24th March, the Indian state announced a 21-day lockdown that would come in place within 4 hours. Almost immediately,…
Citizenship…

The Web as Urban Archives: Nashik’s history in the mobile phone

28th February 202026th February 2020
THIS POST HAS BEEN REBLOGGED FROM THE LEARNING FROM SMALL CITIES WEBSITE HERE Recently I received my first digital capacity training. Our research assistant and I were talking to a…
General…

World Urban Forum 2020, Abu Dhabi

27th February 202027th February 2020
From 10-13 February 2020, I was invited by UN-Habitat to speak at the Dialogues 4: Frontier Technologies plenary session and two other side events organised by UK GCRF and IHC…
Announcements…

New Publication: Intimate Infrastructures. The rubrics of gendered safety and urban violence in Kerala, India

23rd January 2020
We just received confirmation that our co-authored article for Geoforum "Intimate Infrastructures: The rubrics of gendered safety and urban violence in Kerala, India" has been accepted for publication. This article has…
Fieldwork…

Simla ‘below Cart Road’: Biographies of houses in the margins of an Imperial urban age

23rd September 2019
**This is a reblogged post. Click here for original** After three months, we finally receive permission to access the Shimla Municipal Corporation (MC) Records Room. We walk down the four…
Citizenship…

Shimla: The slow contoured life of an imagined Smart City

4th September 20193rd September 2019
*** This is a reblogged post from our ESRC funded project website 'Learning from Small Cities'. Click here for the original post.*** For all purposes, Shimla is slow. It takes…
Citizenship…

Jalandhar: Emigration, transnationalism and the future of a ‘Smart Chowk’ development

3rd September 2019
***This is a reblogged post from project website 'Learning from Small Cities' funded by the ESRC. Click here for original post*** ‘Visa denied’ We were sitting in one of the…
Announcements…

New Publication: The ‘Smart Safe City’: Gendered time, speed and violence in the margins of India’s urban age.

5th August 201923rd January 2020
I just received confirmation that my article for the Annals of the AAG titled "The ‘Smart Safe City’: Gendered time, speed and violence in the margins of India’s urban age"…
Announcements…

Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) honours geographer, Dr Ayona…

2nd June 2019
Dr Ayona Datta from the Department of Geography has been awarded the Busk Medal 2019 for her contribution to 'our understanding of smart cities through fieldwork'. Source: Royal Geographical Society…
Citizenship…

Intimate Infrastructures Storymap

16th March 201916th March 2019
Intimate infrastructures is a way of seeing and understanding how infrastructure, in their absence, disconnectedness and exclusions are woven into the intimate material and social relationships of urban life. These intimate…
Citizenship…

#AanaJaana Storymap

2nd March 201929th April 2019
Curating gendered digital lives in Delhi’s urban peripheries Combining approaches from urban geography, gender studies, software ethnography and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), this ArcGIS mapping initiative is a unique interdisciplinary…
Citizenship…

Indian women from the outskirts of Delhi are taking selfies to claim their right to the city

27th February 201927th February 2019
Ayona Datta., Author provided Ayona Datta, King's College London Taking selfies and posting them on social media is often derided as a narcissistic, self-absorbed and attention-seeking practice. Filters come in…
Citizenship…

“THIS CITY IS FOR YOU AND ME”- Khadar ki Ladkiyan [Khadar Girls] music video

7th January 201920th January 2019
REBLOGGED FROM 'GENDERING THE SMART CITY' Dr. Ayona Datta, Project Principal Investigator We are ending the Delhi phase of the ‘Gendering the Smart City’ project on a high. What began…
Citizenship…

#MeToo has arrived in India, and it’s changing how technology is used to fight injustice

26th October 201827th October 2018
#MeToo has arrived in India, and it's changing how technology is used to fight injustice Shutterstock.Ayona Datta, King's College London; Nabeela Ahmed, King's College London, and Rakhi Tripathi, FORE School…
Citizenship…

Film: Habitat and Living in Plural Cities

24th April 20177th May 2018
Habitat and Living in Plural Cities Watch this new film produced by the British Academy as part of their Urban Futures series. Abstract: Is our understanding of urban infrastructure changing?…
Announcements…

Learning from the Utopian City: Navi Mumbai

23rd June 201624th April 2017
This is a reflection on a two day workshop organised by Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai as part of our 'Learning from Utopian Cities' AHRC funded international network.
Citizenship…

What is smart about smart cities? A response from the global south

30th June 20135th June 2018
Imagine that you get off your flight and go straight into an electric car that takes you zipping over traffic into your business meeting. Imagine that your  mobile phone never…
Announcements…

REF 2021 subpanel 14 Geography

4th December 20204th December 2020
I will be joining the upcoming REF 2021 (Research Excellence Framework) exercise as sub-panel member in Geography. I am deeply honoured to be nominated by the Royal Geographical Society (RGS-IBG),…
Citizenship…

Justice and the Digital Symposium

11th July 201817th January 2019
Invited speaker in the Digital Geographies Working Group Annual Symposium ‘Justice and the Digital’ @digital_RGS #DGWGSymp

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