Convivial spaces

The chapter explores how Hindus and Muslims in the walled city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat evolve practices that manage the challenges of living together with religious differences and identities. Historically, the walled city, popularly known as Kot, has been a much-fragmented space ruptured along lines of religion, caste, and occupation, with its most visible fault lines being along the Hindu-Muslim divide. The spatial formation of neighbourhoods and residential localities articulate religious differences and identities of Hindus and Muslims through their boundaries and boundary-making processes. These boundaries are imbued with meanings of trust, respect, recognition, and betrayal, producing 'spatialities of feeling' and experience that enhance one's consciousness of religious values and meanings. The physical proximity and experience of difference heighten awareness of identity but also create intersections that co-produce opportunities for dialogue, as well as conflict and contestation, convivial spaces that engage with difference and make sense of it. Thus, the spatiality of religion and meaning-making are not mutually exclusive but entangled in the process of place-making

Anthropological Studies and Insights · Computer Science · South Asian Studies and Conflicts · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies