N P Narayanan
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 69346 |
|---|---|
| NOME | N P Narayanan |
| PRENOMES | N P |
| SOBRENOME | Narayanan |
| ASSINATURA | NARAYANAN N P |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9879-7702 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 13 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 34 |
| OBRAS COMO AUTOR | 13 |
| OBRAS COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2018 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 4 |
Concealed infrastructures
Social sciences are now critically focusing on decentering the hegemony of knowledge production. The politics of knowledge and its colonial spatiality are starting to have an impact on how we theorize and study spaces. Against this backdrop, this theme issue brings together a diverse set of papers to politicize the multi-scalar spatiality of infrastructure studies. The papers are assembled using two provocations (as reflected in the title). First…
Discursive vehicles and the making of infrastructures
In the midst of a material turn that has been embraced by a number of disciplines and fields, and as we are witnessing an infrastructural moment in academic and operational circles alike, this article seeks to re-conceptualize the relationship between infrastructures and discourses. To carry out this agenda, we bring forward the notion of discursive vehicles, as a tool to explore how discourses can make, remake, and unmake infrastructures. Using …
Ontological locationalities
Recent calls in urban studies emphasize the need for inquiry to look beyond North Atlantic circuits of knowledge production, encouraging research to venture beyond the metropolis. These calls advocate engagement with empirical and theoretical insights from multiple elsewheres that have been conceptualized as peripheries. In this article, I contend that more studies from peripheries would not alter the North Atlantic knowledge hegemony, as the ont…
Research without researchers
The metropolitan rootedness of urban studies has been under critique for more than 2 decades. The call for more studies from "elsewhere" and theorization from "outside" the North Atlantic circuits of knowledge production has changed the landscape of urban theory. However, the genius loci of this urban theory still lies in the metropolis (centre of power and knowledge). One key reason for this metropolitan locatedness is the lack of attention paid…
How many Kirulapana Canals are there in Colombo? Reading everyday imageries and imaginations using southern theory
Urban imaginations, imageries and conceptualizations are always plural and illustrate the formation of knowledge hegemonies. In this article, we engage with the problematic of reading infrastructures with a southern theory lens. We explore multiple imaginations, imageries and conceptualizations of the Kirulapana Canal in Colombo via everyday practices. Analysing the geographical imaginations of the state officials and residents, we illustrate (i)…
Surrounds surrounding the South
Dislocating Urban Theory
Urban theory, produced in North Atlantic centres, has been perpetrated as universal and recent urban studies have pointed to the limits of this theory, calling for a Southern turn. The Southern call is to dislocate the concentration of power and knowledge in the metropolis. Owing to this concentration, concerns of the metropolis often become (or are made to become) concerns of the periphery. Taking informality as a practice, not embedded in peopl…
Bath packets and multiple Colombo(s)
Rice is a staple in Sri Lanka and is often eaten with three or more condiments. This article explores the modes in which this staple transforms itself when it becomes a packaged commodity of 'rice and curry' (called 'bath packets') in Colombo. Tracing the bath packets, I build an intertwined narrative, of: (i) gender performativity and perception in making, selling, and buying of bath packets, and (ii) the implicit socio-economic codes and urban …
Southern Theory without a North
There have been calls to broaden urban theory to incorporate learnings from the Southern or ordinary cities (periphery). These calls are often placed as a counter to the hegemony of the Northern cities (metropolis), which have long been the sites for producing theory. If the metropolis is a concept to describe clustering of power and knowledge, then geographical located-ness of this metropolis in the North is theoretically stifling. Therefore, we…
The Delhi Bias
Slum eradication has been a concern in South Asian cities since the colonial times. Legislation and policies are being framed both out of national desires and international strategies. However, very little is being studied on how these legislation and policies come into being, specifically geography's influence in their formulation. The article analyses parliamentary debates from India (Rajya Sabha, 1953–2014), and outlines the process of histori…
World-class as a provincial construct
South Asia’s bourgeoning agglomerations are argued to derive their imageries from the abstracted northern notions of the urban, partially captured by the umbrella phrase – world-class. This article unpacks the notion of world-class using planning exercises in Colombo and Delhi. I argue that world-class cannot be seen in isolation to read the violence of urbanization, but when planning is historicized, visions like world-class present themselves a…
The production of informality and everyday politics
Urban informality is a complex phenomenon and recent literature points towards the need to develop a new theoretical framework to analyse and interpret empirical observations. This paper uses Bourdieu’s practice theory to conceptualize informality as a set of practices, analysing two case studies from Jagdamba Camp, Delhi (India), and its surrounding neighbourhoods. The first case centres on practices around a community-managed water supply syste…
Informal production of the city
This paper attempts to understand the production of the city through informality. In particular, informal practices related to the momo (dumpling) industry, concentrated in the "urban village" of Chirag Dilli, are analysed in their dialectic relationship with formal planning and legislation in Delhi. We use a Lefebvrian framework that views city-making as an interaction of formal representations in the form of master plans, etc., informal and for…
Informal production of the city
This paper attempts to understand the production of the city through informality. In particular, informal practices related to the momo (dumpling) industry, concentrated in the "urban village" of Chirag Dilli, are analysed in their dialectic relationship with formal planning and legislation in Delhi. We use a Lefebvrian framework that views city-making as an interaction of formal representations in the form of master plans, etc., informal and for…
Dislocating Urban Theory
Urban theory, produced in North Atlantic centres, has been perpetrated as universal and recent urban studies have pointed to the limits of this theory, calling for a Southern turn. The Southern call is to dislocate the concentration of power and knowledge in the metropolis. Owing to this concentration, concerns of the metropolis often become (or are made to become) concerns of the periphery. Taking informality as a practice, not embedded in peopl…
Southern Theory without a North
There have been calls to broaden urban theory to incorporate learnings from the Southern or ordinary cities (periphery). These calls are often placed as a counter to the hegemony of the Northern cities (metropolis), which have long been the sites for producing theory. If the metropolis is a concept to describe clustering of power and knowledge, then geographical located-ness of this metropolis in the North is theoretically stifling. Therefore, we…
World-class as a provincial construct
South Asia’s bourgeoning agglomerations are argued to derive their imageries from the abstracted northern notions of the urban, partially captured by the umbrella phrase – world-class. This article unpacks the notion of world-class using planning exercises in Colombo and Delhi. I argue that world-class cannot be seen in isolation to read the violence of urbanization, but when planning is historicized, visions like world-class present themselves a…
The production of informality and everyday politics
Urban informality is a complex phenomenon and recent literature points towards the need to develop a new theoretical framework to analyse and interpret empirical observations. This paper uses Bourdieu’s practice theory to conceptualize informality as a set of practices, analysing two case studies from Jagdamba Camp, Delhi (India), and its surrounding neighbourhoods. The first case centres on practices around a community-managed water supply syste…
Research without researchers
The metropolitan rootedness of urban studies has been under critique for more than 2 decades. The call for more studies from "elsewhere" and theorization from "outside" the North Atlantic circuits of knowledge production has changed the landscape of urban theory. However, the genius loci of this urban theory still lies in the metropolis (centre of power and knowledge). One key reason for this metropolitan locatedness is the lack of attention paid…
How many Kirulapana Canals are there in Colombo? Reading everyday imageries and imaginations using southern theory
Urban imaginations, imageries and conceptualizations are always plural and illustrate the formation of knowledge hegemonies. In this article, we engage with the problematic of reading infrastructures with a southern theory lens. We explore multiple imaginations, imageries and conceptualizations of the Kirulapana Canal in Colombo via everyday practices. Analysing the geographical imaginations of the state officials and residents, we illustrate (i)…
Informal production of the city
This paper attempts to understand the production of the city through informality. In particular, informal practices related to the momo (dumpling) industry, concentrated in the "urban village" of Chirag Dilli, are analysed in their dialectic relationship with formal planning and legislation in Delhi. We use a Lefebvrian framework that views city-making as an interaction of formal representations in the form of master plans, etc., informal and for…
World-class as a provincial construct
South Asia’s bourgeoning agglomerations are argued to derive their imageries from the abstracted northern notions of the urban, partially captured by the umbrella phrase – world-class. This article unpacks the notion of world-class using planning exercises in Colombo and Delhi. I argue that world-class cannot be seen in isolation to read the violence of urbanization, but when planning is historicized, visions like world-class present themselves a…
The production of informality and everyday politics
Urban informality is a complex phenomenon and recent literature points towards the need to develop a new theoretical framework to analyse and interpret empirical observations. This paper uses Bourdieu’s practice theory to conceptualize informality as a set of practices, analysing two case studies from Jagdamba Camp, Delhi (India), and its surrounding neighbourhoods. The first case centres on practices around a community-managed water supply syste…
The Delhi Bias
Slum eradication has been a concern in South Asian cities since the colonial times. Legislation and policies are being framed both out of national desires and international strategies. However, very little is being studied on how these legislation and policies come into being, specifically geography's influence in their formulation. The article analyses parliamentary debates from India (Rajya Sabha, 1953–2014), and outlines the process of histori…
Southern Theory without a North
There have been calls to broaden urban theory to incorporate learnings from the Southern or ordinary cities (periphery). These calls are often placed as a counter to the hegemony of the Northern cities (metropolis), which have long been the sites for producing theory. If the metropolis is a concept to describe clustering of power and knowledge, then geographical located-ness of this metropolis in the North is theoretically stifling. Therefore, we…
Dislocating Urban Theory
Urban theory, produced in North Atlantic centres, has been perpetrated as universal and recent urban studies have pointed to the limits of this theory, calling for a Southern turn. The Southern call is to dislocate the concentration of power and knowledge in the metropolis. Owing to this concentration, concerns of the metropolis often become (or are made to become) concerns of the periphery. Taking informality as a practice, not embedded in peopl…
Bath packets and multiple Colombo(s)
Rice is a staple in Sri Lanka and is often eaten with three or more condiments. This article explores the modes in which this staple transforms itself when it becomes a packaged commodity of 'rice and curry' (called 'bath packets') in Colombo. Tracing the bath packets, I build an intertwined narrative, of: (i) gender performativity and perception in making, selling, and buying of bath packets, and (ii) the implicit socio-economic codes and urban …
Surrounds surrounding the South
Research without researchers
The metropolitan rootedness of urban studies has been under critique for more than 2 decades. The call for more studies from "elsewhere" and theorization from "outside" the North Atlantic circuits of knowledge production has changed the landscape of urban theory. However, the genius loci of this urban theory still lies in the metropolis (centre of power and knowledge). One key reason for this metropolitan locatedness is the lack of attention paid…
How many Kirulapana Canals are there in Colombo? Reading everyday imageries and imaginations using southern theory
Urban imaginations, imageries and conceptualizations are always plural and illustrate the formation of knowledge hegemonies. In this article, we engage with the problematic of reading infrastructures with a southern theory lens. We explore multiple imaginations, imageries and conceptualizations of the Kirulapana Canal in Colombo via everyday practices. Analysing the geographical imaginations of the state officials and residents, we illustrate (i)…
Ontological locationalities
Recent calls in urban studies emphasize the need for inquiry to look beyond North Atlantic circuits of knowledge production, encouraging research to venture beyond the metropolis. These calls advocate engagement with empirical and theoretical insights from multiple elsewheres that have been conceptualized as peripheries. In this article, I contend that more studies from peripheries would not alter the North Atlantic knowledge hegemony, as the ont…
Concealed infrastructures
Social sciences are now critically focusing on decentering the hegemony of knowledge production. The politics of knowledge and its colonial spatiality are starting to have an impact on how we theorize and study spaces. Against this backdrop, this theme issue brings together a diverse set of papers to politicize the multi-scalar spatiality of infrastructure studies. The papers are assembled using two provocations (as reflected in the title). First…
Discursive vehicles and the making of infrastructures
In the midst of a material turn that has been embraced by a number of disciplines and fields, and as we are witnessing an infrastructural moment in academic and operational circles alike, this article seeks to re-conceptualize the relationship between infrastructures and discourses. To carry out this agenda, we bring forward the notion of discursive vehicles, as a tool to explore how discourses can make, remake, and unmake infrastructures. Using …
Sociology (9 obras) · Urban Planning and Governance (9 obras) · Political science (7 obras) · Epistemology (6 obras) · Law (6 obras) · Politics (6 obras) · Geography (5 obras) · Urban and Rural Development Challenges (5 obras) · Water Governance and Infrastructure (5 obras) · Economic growth (4 obras)