The need for the Handbook of Urban Transformation arose out of the ‘Glossary of Urban Transformation’, a series of workshops undertaken by Crossmopollinate, in collaboration with the Urban Transformation and Placemaking project at the University of Heidelberg supported by the DAAD. These workshops, intended to create a rhizomatic glossary of terms that deal with the notions of Urban Transformation as encountered by the various disciplines that deal with urbanity, such as anthropology, urban planning, geography, transcultural theory, art history, architecture, and cartography—moving beyond a linear, grid pattern of meaning-making towards an associative mycelium-like assemblage.
The glossary serves as the first chapter of the Handbook of Urban Transformation. Our goal is to seek the possibility of co-producing knowledge through a more locally situated, community-based structure. The glossary thus became a starting point for us to think about a methodological framework that paves the way for reshaping our lived spaces. We intend to create an open-source handbook that functions as a manifesto, a journal, a catalog, and a pedagogic tool. The Handbook seeks to abstract, democratise and decolonise mapping, while being critical of the historically contested mode of documentation. Making mapping a form of community expression and participation will serve as a method of charting not only spaces but also their sociopolitical implications. The structure of our collective, which comprises a diverse yet interconnected set of disciplines inherently supports mapping as a method that brings in the several layers of being in the city. We wish to thereby challenge the existing modes of authorship of maps and put the community in the center of authorship.
Our Contributors
Ira Borgstedt is an M.Sc. student of Geography at Heidelberg University with a focus on planning and the built environment. Interested in past and current power dynamics and the resulting socio-spatial distributions within the city.
Mihir Desai is a healthcare architect, cartographer and marine biologist from Mumbai, co-author of publications which map prejudice in urban planning for the legal advocacy of coastal communities. His work historicizes maps through a trend of epistemic conflicts using non-teleologic historical analysis of cartographic theory
Inah Kim is an M.A. Student of European Art History and Transcultural Studies in Heidelberg University, interested in diverse modes of communication through visual representation. Changed notions of space, time as well as nature-human dualism in the contemporary setting is her key interest.
Kattyayani Joag is an M.A. student of Transcultural Studies at Heidelberg University. Her research covers the informal waste segregation industry in Dharavi, India. She has worked as a project leader in Compound Lab13 in Dharavi, co-author of publications on the subject, and interested in urbanity and citizenship.
Diego Jaimes-Niño is an architect and M.A. Student of Cultural Heritage at Heidelberg University. He is interested in redefining the paradigms of urban built cultural heritage through practice and place. His practical work relates to cultural management, communication and exchange.
Anita Markmiller studied Art History and Psychology and is an M.A. student of Art History and Transcultural Studies at Heidelberg University. She researches how the visual shapes aesthetics, knowledge, and truth through humanity’s relation to nature and the ocean, and how it reflects in art.
Participants of Glossary Workshop
Nina Baum, Tarini Bedi, Christiane Brosius, Sujan Chitrakar, Ilknur Erdogan, Amrita Mukherjee, Amna Mawaz Khan, Deepali Khunteta, Ninja Maharjan, Divyakant Maisuria, Sagar Manandhar, Schuvechhya Pradhan, Monisha Pushparaj, Paromita Roy, Nicolai Schuchna, Prakash Ranjit, Kripa Tuladhar
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