Social Dynamics of the Urban

This volume emphasises the sociological view that cities are primarily about people, not places or buildings, and explores the social dynamics of urban space in globalising India. Distinguishing between ‘locale’ and ‘milieu’ and the community–cosmopolitanism dialectic in urban areas, it elucidates the thematic for urban sociology today. 

The chapters explore the various perspectives and processes in understanding the urban predicament in India today. The contributors specifically ask: What are the characteristics of the fastest growing cities in India? What are the forces shaping their forms and processes? Who benefits from what type of livelihood options cities offer? How have city administrations been dealing with mounting demands for housing, energy, and water resources, and problems of mass transportation? What implications do these have for the ecology of the city and the surrounding areas? Given the heterogeneity of urban populations, what social processes are at work and how they affect cit[y]zenship and identity? What aspirations and tensions are expressed among different groups, and what implications do these have for inter-group relations? What challenges do inter-group relations pose for urban planning and administration? The contributors include renowned scholars as also young researchers. They go beyond their disciplinary moorings of economics, history, political science, social work, and sociology, and their trans-disciplinary dialogues carry inputs from policy makers, administrators, and grassroots activists working in urban areas.  

• negotiations over land in urban India
• information technology in urban India
• JNNURM
• urban decentralisation
• crime in Kolkata
• the underworld in Mumbai
• urban Muslim ghettos
• ghettos and violence
• public distribution system for urban poor
• urban nuclear families
• urban slums and planning
• urbanisation in mountain regions
• political discourses of urbanisation
• rural-urban connections

• National Law School of India University, Bengaluru, India

  N. Jayaram

N. Jayaram is former Professor of Sociology at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, and former National Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies. He is Visiting Professor at the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru and Ambedkar University Delhi, and Visiting Research Mentor at Christ University, Bengaluru. Dr Jayaram is a member of the Association of Third World Studies, International Network on the Role of Universities in Developing Areas, Indian Sociological Society, and Comparative Education Society of India. He is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Comparative Family Studies, a Member of the Editorial Board of The Indian Journal of Social Work, Journal of Educational Planning and Administration, and Rajagiri Journal of Social Development. He was the Managing Editor of Sociological Bulletin (Journal of the Indian Sociological Society),  the Editor of ICSSR Journal of Reviews and Abstracts: Sociology and Social Anthropology and was on the Editorial Board of the Caribbean Journal of Criminology and Social Psychology (Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice, The University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago). He is the recipient of the Dr Paduru Gururaja Bhat Annual Award (2012) and ET Now Education Leadership Award (2013).

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