Learning from the Utopian City: An international network on alternative histories of India's urban futures

该项目将社会历史、后殖民和城市研究相结合，从乌托邦城市的另类历史中学习，以塑造印度的城市未来。它的观点是，乌托邦既是自上而下的城市规划愿景，也是社会包容性城市和公民身份的基层表达。该项目建立在英国和印度研究人员之间现有合作伙伴关系建立的坚实基础之上，旨在探索乌托邦城市规划的另类历史如何为印度未来城市和城市化的轨迹提供信息。它由来自英国的城市地理学家（Datta）和来自印度的建筑师和女权主义地理学家（Sabhlok）领导。这项研究得到了英国的合作学者——印度历史学家古尔德（Gould）和城市历史与发展学者马德金（Madgin）的支持。网络的目的是揭示乌托邦城市的平行历史，这些历史到目前为止已经被印度城市规划的自上而下的愿景所改变、支配或挪用。它将研究城市历史是由各种相互作用，有时是竞争的乌托邦愿景组成的。这些愿景也以不同而非普遍的方式定义公民身份，与背景、物质条件和政治激进主义密切相关。该网络将通过与印度当地学者、城市规划者和基层组织的一系列相互关联的城市研讨会，以及在英国的项目结束研讨会，分析和分享这些交替历史的知识。该网络旨在回答以下关键问题：-印度的城市乌托邦在历史和文化上是如何形成的？这里的目的是描绘和分析一种新型社会和政治秩序的乌托邦愿景如何与控制和遏制制度有特殊的联系。这将研究新独立的印度（20世纪50年代）所设想的乌托邦是如何与20世纪60年代或后自由化印度（21世纪）的乌托邦愿景联系起来的。我们将确定城市蓝图中的共同点和分歧，创建这些城市的参数以及它们目前对印度城市未来的贡献。我们还将探讨城市乌托邦愿景在多大程度上受到竞争愿望的制约，并为外部受众发展。-乌托邦城市如何既考虑到市民的多样性，又考虑到他们对理想城市愿景的多样性？它试图解决乌托邦城市的矛盾本质——作为秩序的规则和作为转型的生产空间。换句话说，我们将试图质疑乌托邦是如何由次等公民体现和产生的，以维持和挑战政治监管。利用口述历史、日记、照片、信件和其他形式的非正式手工艺品带到工作坊，这将试图扰乱城市乌托邦的终结，以暗示乌托邦印度城市的持续模式。-乌托邦城市的历史如何指导印度城市化的未来？本文旨在研究一种双重乌托邦愿景，即只有从城市乌托邦的历史中学习，才能想象一个乌托邦的未来。在这样做的过程中，我们通过城市历史来接近印度的城市未来，因此只有通过对其历史的理解，我们才能了解它。此外，由于未来尚未实现，我们认为，通过纳入次等乌托邦的历史，其轨迹可以转向更具包容性的结果。会议的进一步目的是将该项目扩展到a)其他南亚城市；B)探索研究城市社会和文化的学者与规划师、第三部门组织和建筑师互动的途径；c)探索进一步项目的可能性，研究全球南方和全球北方城市乌托邦之间的关系。

This project interweaves social history, postcolonial and urban studies to learn from alternative histories of the utopian city in order to shape India's urban future. It does this by taking the view that utopias are as much of grassroots articulations of socially inclusive cities and citizenship as they are top-down visions of urban planning. Building upon the strong foundations established through existing partnerships between UK and Indian researchers, this project aims to explore how an alternate history of utopian urban planning can inform the trajectories of future cities and urbanization in India. It is led by urban geographer (Datta) from UK and architect and feminist geographer (Sabhlok) from India. This is supported by UK Co-Is - Indian historian (Gould) and Urban History and development scholar (Madgin). The aim of the network is to uncover parallel histories of the utopian city that have so far been changed, dominated or appropriated by top down visions of Indian urban planning. It will examine urban histories as being made up of a variety of interacting and sometimes competing utopian visions. These visions also define citizenship in differentiated rather than universal ways, strongly linked to context, material conditions and political activism. The network will analyse and share knowledge of these alternate histories through a series of inter-connected city workshops with local academics, urban planners and grassroots organisations in India and an end of project symposium in the UK.The network aims to answer the following key questions:- How are urban utopias historically and culturally conditioned in India? The aim here will be to map and analyse how utopian visions of a new kind of social and political order have particular associations with regimes of control and containment. This will examine how utopias envisioned in newly independent India (1950s) are connected to utopian visions of the 1960s or post liberalization India (2000s). We will identify common threads and divergences in city blueprints, the parameters of creating these cities and their current contribution to India's urban future. We will also explore how far urban utopian visions are conditioned by competitive aspirations and developed for external audiences. - How can the utopian city take account not just of the diversity of its citizens but also the diversity of their visions of the ideal city? This seeks to address the paradoxical nature of the utopian city - as a rule of order and as a productive space of transformation. In other words, we will seek to question how utopias are embodied and engendered by subaltern citizens to sustain as well as challenge political regulation. Drawing upon oral histories, diaries, photographs, letters and other forms of informal artefacts brought to the workshops, this will seek to unsettle the finality of the urban utopia to suggest the continuous mode of becoming of the utopian Indian city. - How can a history of the utopian city inform the future of India's urbanization? This aims to examine a dual utopian visioning whereby it is only possible to imagine a utopian future by learning from the history of urban utopias. In so doing, we approach India's urban futures as already written through its urban histories and therefore accessible to us only through an understanding of its histories. Moreover, as the future is yet to materialise, we argue that its trajectory can be shifted towards more inclusive outcomes through the inclusion of a history of subaltern utopias.The further purpose of the meetings is to extend the project to a) other South Asian cities; b) explore the means by which academics working on urban society and culture can interact with planners, third sector organisations and architects; c) explore the possibilities for further projects examining the relationship between urban utopias in the Global South and global north.