Mellon Forum on the Urban Environment
Coastal Worlds: Ecologies and Infrastructures in Western India
Ryo Morimoto, Anthropology, and PIIRS/Princeton Mellon Fellow Chandana Anusha
Wednesday, November 10 at 12pm ET / Betts Auditorium / Zoom
The coastal landscape around the Gulf of Kutch in Western India is defined by unprecedented economic development and ecological devastation. How do we move beyond these polarizing narratives? Diverse ways of knowing the coast are often obscured in broad narratives of development and destruction. Seafarers, sailors, farmers, colonial and postcolonial officials, and businesspeople imagine and create visions for the future of the coast that are simultaneously contested and convergent. How can we move beyond the narratives of doom that dominate coastal environments? How might one advance a language that does justice to people’s ecology, which may extend beyond the physical ecology of the coast to a place in a broader meshwork that is their universe?
Click here to attend the discussion on November 10 in Betts Auditorium. You must have your PUID and follow University guidelines. Lunch boxes will be provided post-event.
Click here to attend via Zoom link, open to both PUID and non-PUID holders.
This session will broadcast on Princeton University - Channel 7 LIVE *
As Princeton University and cities across the U.S. “return” to a pre-pandemic normal, the Fall 2021 edition of the Princeton-Mellon Research Forum on the Urban Environment asks the question, what does it mean to return? Under whose terms? As we reacquaint ourselves with in person learning and scholarly dialogs, our aim is to use this time to reflect on not only the events of the past 18 months, but the ways that this period has encouraged us to reframe the questions and categories that we use to discuss cities and the built environment. With the loss of millions of lives globally, a true return to normal is unattainable, and our individual and collective grief points to the impossibilities of return and/or its challenges. Yet, return can also mean remediation, both for communities, societies, and our environment. At the same time, return allows us to challenge the implicitly normative ideas of the future that undergird remediation projects. The framework opens up questions about whose ideas of the past and future dictate what constitutes a return.
Note: In-person attendance is currently available for registered Princeton University ID holders only and face coverings are required. In-person attendance is contingent on University guidelines for indoor events — updates will be posted as necessary.