Urban Landscapes in Flux: Power, Culture, and Everyday Negotiations of Space

Abstract (English)

More than half of the world’s population resides in cities for the first time in human history. This has led to the increased complexity of human life. Increased urbanization has a variety of developmental implications that influence the daily lives of city dwellers. The lifestyle in cities has become complex like never before giving rise to several issues which can’t be neglected. In this domain, anthropology needs to perceive and address in appropriation to the emerging dynamics of the social relations, symbols, and political economies, caste and class dynamics, changing ideologies, popular culture, street food, street children and human trafficking that are most manifested in the urban space. As sites of migration, economic exchange, and political struggle, urban spaces and smart cities reflect both structural inequalities and the creative ways in which individuals and communities negotiate belonging, identity, and agency.
Migration is the driving force of the urbanization, the marginalization, poverty, unhygienic living conditions leading delinquency in demographical dynamics. Along with migration, human trafficking takes place from tribal to rural, rural to urban, poor to affluent parts, developing countries to developed countries.
Anthropologists have long examined how cities function as contested grounds where global and local forces intersect. Cities are important for the structuring of global networks and operations; hence they are venues where contemporary globalisation reveals itself. Cities function as important commerce and international production hubs and immigration destinations. While urban planning and governance often reinforce spatial hierarchies, everyday interactions, artistic interventions, and grassroots activism challenge these structures, producing alternative forms of urban belonging.
This panel tries to understand the relationship between urban environments and cultural dynamics, emphasizing how cities influence and are transformed by varied human experiences. Through comparative analyses across different global contexts, this discussion will contribute to broader debates on urban futures, social justice, and the re-imagination of public space.
The panel invites research papers on:
1. Urbanization, spatial segregation, displacement and rehabilitation
2. Migration, urban poor, marginalization, under-privileged
3. Multiculturalism, urban popular culture, corporate culture and diaspora contribution
4. Protest, Social Movements, ethnicity and ethnic conflicts
5 Human rights, human trafficking, child rights, street life
6 Urban planning, smart cities, development and sustainability