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Dr Ayona Datta
Contact details:
Cities Programme,
Department of Sociology,
London School of Economics and Political Science,
Houghton Street,
London WC2A 2AE
a.datta2@lse.ac.uk
[ Research ]
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Talks/Lectures/Service ]
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Current
Research
Projects |
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Politics of Sustainable Development: Mobility and Development along the
Mumbai-Pune Expressway
ESRC-ICSSR India-UK Scholar Exchange Award (2009-2010)
Host: Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
This
research examines the politics of ‘sustainable development’ in the
construction of the Mumbai-Pune expressway and what this means for the ways
that ‘environment’ is imagined, produced, and discoursed in the region. The
aims of this research will be to: describe and analyse how the ‘environment’
is politicised around development and class-based mobilities along the
Mumbai-Pune expressway; describe and analyse how ‘sustainable development’
becomes the terrain of negotiations among a range of decision-makers along
the Mumbai-Pune expressway; advance theoretical work on the ways in which
the relations between state, civil society, and class-based mobility shape
the politics of sustainability along high-speed transport infrastructures. |
Home, Migration,
and the City: East-European Construction
Workers in London
Funded by Suntory Toyota International Centres for
Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE (2006-2007)
Since the EU expansion,
approximately 98,000 East European migrants have registered to work in the
UK. A large portion of them are employed in the construction industry. The
buildings that they build are visible reminders of their presence in the
city; yet they occupy the margins of 'home' (hostels, bedsits, and shared
houses) in the city. This research will examine
how 'home' for East European construction workers in London is shaped by and
in turn shapes the built environment of the city. Since employment in the UK
construction sector is marked by its seasonal and temporal nature, they work
for different construction firms in different parts of the city.
Consequently, they use different places in the city for home, work, leisure,
and consumption. How do they understand their migration against the 'home'
that they leave behind, 'homes' that they build, and 'homes' that they
occupy in London? How do they create new kinds of places in London through
everyday practices of domesticity, leisure, consumption, and socialising?
How does their migration produce new types of built forms in London and in
their country of origin?
This research involves
simultaneous strategies of narrative and visual analysis through in-depth
interviews and participatory photography. It is proposed that at least 30
participants who work in the construction and building trades will be
recruited. This research is the first of its kind in examining the
relationship between the places of home, migration, and the city for Eastern
Europeans in the UK construction industry and is supposed to shed light on
the different ways that global cities such as London are physically shaped
through particular forms of migration- of people, ideas, and skills. |
Spaces
of Control and Resistance: Women's Organisation in a Squatter Settlement
Funded by British Academy Small Research Grant (2005-2006)
This research project uses
the case study of a resident women's movement in an urban squatter
settlement in New Delhi in order to examine the connections between social
agency, subjectivities, and architecture. It uses a mixed method of
ethnographic observations and interviewing and architectural analysis to
provide an insight into the simultaneous production of control and
resistance through the materiality of different places in a squatter
settlement.
The fieldwork was completed
in 2005 with local research assistance. A total of 83 men and women living
in the squatter settlement were interviewed through semi-structured and
open-ended questions. These interviews took place in participants' houses or
on the streets which had important consequences on the interactions between
researcher and participants. The interviews were supplemented by detailed
photographic records of the houses, streets, and squares, augmented where
necessary by sketches. This research is now in its final phase where the
interviews are being translated and transcribed. Related papers from this
project have been accepted for publication or are under preparation. |
New Communities, New
Identities: Architecture of 'California' Homes in Izmir, Turkey
Funded by
Queen's University Belfast (2005)
Even before the start of
construction of the Cesme-Izmir expressway in Turkey in 1993, large
construction companies began to develop land along this route into suburban
residential communities. These consisted of single-family, two-storey houses
with a swimming pool, which were built as gated communities housing upper
middle-class families. The similarity in architectural styles of these
houses to those in popular American television series, led to their naming
as ‘California Homes’. Their ‘Americanness’ attracted not just the upper
middle class but also officials from the nearby NATO base in Izmir. As
these houses became more desirable, those who moved there added further
architectural features to reflect new hybrid identities of themselves as
‘Americanised’ (and hence ‘modern’) Turkish population.
This research is a pilot
project to examine how the architecture of these California homes which were
built in the late 1990s, intersects with a political project of identity
construction. This research will examine the socio-political processes
through which these houses came to be built, their architectural language
that symbolises ‘Americanness’, and the cultural conditions under which
these gated communities have become the symbol of social status. An
understanding of the dynamics between architecture and cultural identity
will contribute to the wider knowledge of the role of architecture in the
making of ‘modernity’ in Turkey and other developing countries. |