Gautam Bhan
Biographic Data
| ID | 317078 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Gautam Bhan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Gautam |
| FAMILY NAME | Bhan |
| SIGNATURE | BHAN G |
| AFFILIATIONS | Indian Institute for Human Settlements |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7473-9527 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 343 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 15 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
The Timing Feels Off
Conflicting temporalities increasingly define contemporary urban life, producing a shared sense that time in cities has fallen out of joint. The polycrises of rapid and uneven urbanisation expose the limits of growth-oriented narratives and encourage us to imagine urban futures grounded in repair, care, and sustenance that can allow new ways of imagining time itself.
Still thinking from the south
This essay is a written version of the 2025 Urban Studies Annual Lecture delivered in April 2025 at City Debates , the annual conference of the urban faculty of the American University of Beirut. In it, nearly two decades after it reshaped the field of urban studies (and me) in many ways, I return to thinking about southern urban theory. I do so in an urban interregnum when existing language, frameworks, concepts and categories seem insufficient …
Operationalising social protection
A global pandemic has brought renewed attention to an old question: what do we owe each other? Calls to engage in thinking about a ‘new social contract’ have emerged rooted both in an intimate memory of crisis as well as in the possibilities rooted in relief work, mutual aid and stimulus packages. Scholars have sought to learn, for example, what relief measures could teach us about social protection in a ‘post-pandemic’ world, even while cautioni…
Mapping as a collective and southern practice
This reflective paper describes a relationship to mapping as a collective and southern practice. Using examples from the author's own involvement in collective map‐making practices based in New Delhi, the paper roots mapping in the context of southern urbanisms, taking examples of informal housing, work, and workplaces to debate the role of mapping vis‐à‐vis the desire for either more or less visibility. It then argues that mapping must reflect p…
Breastfeeding knowledge and practices of working mothers in the informal economy in New Delhi
Notes on a Southern urban practice
Writing alongside Southern urban theorists, this essay argues that the emerging body of “theory from the South” must be simultaneously tied to the production of forms and theories of practice. It must ask: How can a new body of thought give us ways of moving and modes of practice? Drawing from the experience of Indian cities, three such modes of Southern practice are offered: squat as a practice not just of subaltern urbanization but of the state…
Cities and Social Progress
A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Where Is Citizenship
Research Article| December 01 2017 Where Is Citizenship?: Thoughts from the Basti Gautam Bhan Gautam Bhan Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East (2017) 37 (3): 463–469. https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201x-4279176 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Gautam Bhan; Where Is Citizenship?: Thoughts from the Basti.…
From thebastito the 'house
In June 2015, the Government of India approved a national housing program called the Prime Minster's Awas Yojana (PMAY; Prime Minister's Housing Plan), the latest in a series of 'urban missions' that have seen the urban emerge as an object for policy intervention in a country long rurally imagined. The emergence of these missions has necessitated the construction of a new urban grammar. Concepts, categories and classifications have sought to defi…
Urban India 2015
The impoverishment of poverty
This paper explores the mechanisms through which democratic urban polities produce, maintain and reproduce inequality. It does so by looking at case law from 1990–2007 in New Delhi, where a seemingly relentless series of evictions of poor illegal settlements (colloquially known as bastis) were ordered by the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court of India in Public Interest Litigations (PILs). While the power of the claims of the “middle class” a…
The real lives of urban fantasies
This paper is a response to and a commentary on Vanessa Watson’s paper on “African urban fantasies” in this issue of the Journal, which analyzes new urban master plans developed by international architectural firms and property development companies for many cities in sub-Saharan Africa. Taking Watson’s argument as an opportunity to think about current urban fantasies in Indian cities, this response offers three reflections. The first looks at th…
This is no longer the city I once knew”. Evictions, the urban poor and the right to the city in millennial Delhi
Millennial Delhi is changing rapidly. Between 1990 and 2003, 51,461 houses were demolished in Delhi under “slum clearance” schemes. Between 2004 and 2007 alone, however, at least 45,000 homes were demolished, and since the beginning of 2007, eviction notices have been served on at least three other large settlements. Fewer than 25 per cent of the households evicted in this latter time period have received any alternative resettlement sites. These…
Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai in Conversation
Although many battles remain for queer people in India, newly confident gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered communities have emerged over the past decade. Meanwhile, Indian publishing houses – who nearly a decade ago maintained a stony silence when it came to sexuality – are eager to print books on queer lives. To understand these changes in attitude, it is important to scrutinise how sexuality is being written about in fiction, popular writ…
The effect of maternal education on gender bias in care-seeking for common childhood illnesses
Notes on a Southern urban practice
Writing alongside Southern urban theorists, this essay argues that the emerging body of “theory from the South” must be simultaneously tied to the production of forms and theories of practice. It must ask: How can a new body of thought give us ways of moving and modes of practice? Drawing from the experience of Indian cities, three such modes of Southern practice are offered: squat as a practice not just of subaltern urbanization but of the state…
This is no longer the city I once knew”. Evictions, the urban poor and the right to the city in millennial Delhi
Millennial Delhi is changing rapidly. Between 1990 and 2003, 51,461 houses were demolished in Delhi under “slum clearance” schemes. Between 2004 and 2007 alone, however, at least 45,000 homes were demolished, and since the beginning of 2007, eviction notices have been served on at least three other large settlements. Fewer than 25 per cent of the households evicted in this latter time period have received any alternative resettlement sites. These…
The real lives of urban fantasies
This paper is a response to and a commentary on Vanessa Watson’s paper on “African urban fantasies” in this issue of the Journal, which analyzes new urban master plans developed by international architectural firms and property development companies for many cities in sub-Saharan Africa. Taking Watson’s argument as an opportunity to think about current urban fantasies in Indian cities, this response offers three reflections. The first looks at th…
The impoverishment of poverty
This paper explores the mechanisms through which democratic urban polities produce, maintain and reproduce inequality. It does so by looking at case law from 1990–2007 in New Delhi, where a seemingly relentless series of evictions of poor illegal settlements (colloquially known as bastis) were ordered by the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court of India in Public Interest Litigations (PILs). While the power of the claims of the “middle class” a…
From thebastito the 'house
In June 2015, the Government of India approved a national housing program called the Prime Minster's Awas Yojana (PMAY; Prime Minister's Housing Plan), the latest in a series of 'urban missions' that have seen the urban emerge as an object for policy intervention in a country long rurally imagined. The emergence of these missions has necessitated the construction of a new urban grammar. Concepts, categories and classifications have sought to defi…
Mapping as a collective and southern practice
This reflective paper describes a relationship to mapping as a collective and southern practice. Using examples from the author's own involvement in collective map‐making practices based in New Delhi, the paper roots mapping in the context of southern urbanisms, taking examples of informal housing, work, and workplaces to debate the role of mapping vis‐à‐vis the desire for either more or less visibility. It then argues that mapping must reflect p…
Breastfeeding knowledge and practices of working mothers in the informal economy in New Delhi
The effect of maternal education on gender bias in care-seeking for common childhood illnesses
Where Is Citizenship
Research Article| December 01 2017 Where Is Citizenship?: Thoughts from the Basti Gautam Bhan Gautam Bhan Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East (2017) 37 (3): 463–469. https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201x-4279176 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Gautam Bhan; Where Is Citizenship?: Thoughts from the Basti.…
Operationalising social protection
A global pandemic has brought renewed attention to an old question: what do we owe each other? Calls to engage in thinking about a ‘new social contract’ have emerged rooted both in an intimate memory of crisis as well as in the possibilities rooted in relief work, mutual aid and stimulus packages. Scholars have sought to learn, for example, what relief measures could teach us about social protection in a ‘post-pandemic’ world, even while cautioni…
The effect of maternal education on gender bias in care-seeking for common childhood illnesses
Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai in Conversation
Although many battles remain for queer people in India, newly confident gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered communities have emerged over the past decade. Meanwhile, Indian publishing houses – who nearly a decade ago maintained a stony silence when it came to sexuality – are eager to print books on queer lives. To understand these changes in attitude, it is important to scrutinise how sexuality is being written about in fiction, popular writ…
This is no longer the city I once knew”. Evictions, the urban poor and the right to the city in millennial Delhi
Millennial Delhi is changing rapidly. Between 1990 and 2003, 51,461 houses were demolished in Delhi under “slum clearance” schemes. Between 2004 and 2007 alone, however, at least 45,000 homes were demolished, and since the beginning of 2007, eviction notices have been served on at least three other large settlements. Fewer than 25 per cent of the households evicted in this latter time period have received any alternative resettlement sites. These…
The real lives of urban fantasies
This paper is a response to and a commentary on Vanessa Watson’s paper on “African urban fantasies” in this issue of the Journal, which analyzes new urban master plans developed by international architectural firms and property development companies for many cities in sub-Saharan Africa. Taking Watson’s argument as an opportunity to think about current urban fantasies in Indian cities, this response offers three reflections. The first looks at th…
The impoverishment of poverty
This paper explores the mechanisms through which democratic urban polities produce, maintain and reproduce inequality. It does so by looking at case law from 1990–2007 in New Delhi, where a seemingly relentless series of evictions of poor illegal settlements (colloquially known as bastis) were ordered by the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court of India in Public Interest Litigations (PILs). While the power of the claims of the “middle class” a…
Urban India 2015
Where Is Citizenship
Research Article| December 01 2017 Where Is Citizenship?: Thoughts from the Basti Gautam Bhan Gautam Bhan Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East (2017) 37 (3): 463–469. https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201x-4279176 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Gautam Bhan; Where Is Citizenship?: Thoughts from the Basti.…
From thebastito the 'house
In June 2015, the Government of India approved a national housing program called the Prime Minster's Awas Yojana (PMAY; Prime Minister's Housing Plan), the latest in a series of 'urban missions' that have seen the urban emerge as an object for policy intervention in a country long rurally imagined. The emergence of these missions has necessitated the construction of a new urban grammar. Concepts, categories and classifications have sought to defi…
Cities and Social Progress
A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Notes on a Southern urban practice
Writing alongside Southern urban theorists, this essay argues that the emerging body of “theory from the South” must be simultaneously tied to the production of forms and theories of practice. It must ask: How can a new body of thought give us ways of moving and modes of practice? Drawing from the experience of Indian cities, three such modes of Southern practice are offered: squat as a practice not just of subaltern urbanization but of the state…
Breastfeeding knowledge and practices of working mothers in the informal economy in New Delhi
Operationalising social protection
A global pandemic has brought renewed attention to an old question: what do we owe each other? Calls to engage in thinking about a ‘new social contract’ have emerged rooted both in an intimate memory of crisis as well as in the possibilities rooted in relief work, mutual aid and stimulus packages. Scholars have sought to learn, for example, what relief measures could teach us about social protection in a ‘post-pandemic’ world, even while cautioni…
Mapping as a collective and southern practice
This reflective paper describes a relationship to mapping as a collective and southern practice. Using examples from the author's own involvement in collective map‐making practices based in New Delhi, the paper roots mapping in the context of southern urbanisms, taking examples of informal housing, work, and workplaces to debate the role of mapping vis‐à‐vis the desire for either more or less visibility. It then argues that mapping must reflect p…
The Timing Feels Off
Conflicting temporalities increasingly define contemporary urban life, producing a shared sense that time in cities has fallen out of joint. The polycrises of rapid and uneven urbanisation expose the limits of growth-oriented narratives and encourage us to imagine urban futures grounded in repair, care, and sustenance that can allow new ways of imagining time itself.
Still thinking from the south
This essay is a written version of the 2025 Urban Studies Annual Lecture delivered in April 2025 at City Debates , the annual conference of the urban faculty of the American University of Beirut. In it, nearly two decades after it reshaped the field of urban studies (and me) in many ways, I return to thinking about southern urban theory. I do so in an urban interregnum when existing language, frameworks, concepts and categories seem insufficient …
Sociology (10 works) · Urban Planning and Governance (10 works) · Political science (8 works) · Urban and Rural Development Challenges (6 works) · Economic growth (5 works) · Geography (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Economics (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Politics (4 works)