Regional Futures
REGIONAL FUTURES
In 2020, I was awarded the EUROPEAN RESEARCH COUNCIL (ERC) ADVANCED GRANT to initiate a new five-year research project on the dynamics of digitalisation-as-urbanisation in the global south. This project will conduct the first comprehensive South-South investigation of the transition to automated planning processes in metropolitan regions, and its impacts on regional urbanisation.
Smart Cities and Digital Urbanism
Smart Cities and Digital Urbanism
I am known internationally for pioneering theoretical and empirical work on India’s smart cities and the ‘digital turn’ in urban studies.
This has attracted
· ESRC NEWTON funds (PI) titled ‘Learning from Small Cities’, AHRC GCRF funds (PI) titled ‘Learning from the Utopian City’,
· BRITISH ACADEMY GCRF funds titled 'Digitising the Periphery: Co-Producing a Toolkit for Digital Democracy and Inclusive Urbanisation' and SNSF funded (CoI) titled 'Smart Cities: Provincializing the global urban age in India and South Africa'.
Feminist Urban Futures
Feminist Urban Futures
I have received international recognition as one of the few scholars working on feminist urban futures in the global south pioneering an original research agenda linking digital geographies, urban infrastructures and Violence Against Women (VAW).
This has attracted :
· BRITISH ACADEMY GCRF funding (PI) titled ‘Disconnected Infrastructures and VAW’ and AHRC GCRF NETWORK GRANT (PI) titled ‘Gendering the Smart city’.
This work has used creative practices and co-production (of films, hip-hop music video, exhibitions and Storymaps) as a tool for empowerment of marginal social actors and has also transformed the work of NGOs and activists in India.
THE FOLLOWING ARE EXAMPLES OF MY RESEARCH PROJECTS
REGIONAL FUTURES
Digitising the Periphery
Learning from Small Cities.
Provincialising the smart city
Gendering the smart city.
(DIS)CONNECTED INFRASTRUCTURES & VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN (VAW)
Learning from Utopian Cities