Urban Experiences in India and China
VIEW EVENT DETAILSJoin us for an UrbanAsia series presentation with Peter van der Veer, Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity at Göttingen, and Tata Chair in Social Sciences at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences
As a historical trend, people across the world have been moving from the countryside to cities. 70% of the world‘s population will be urban by 2050, compared to only 10% a century ago. China and India are no exception, but the ways in which these two countries are undergoing urbanization are very different. This presentation examines urban governance in Shanghai and Mumbai, two post-colonial port cities that are comparable in size. Join us for an exploration of differing strategies and outcomes of urban citizenship, housing and public manifestations of religion. We will investigate theories of citizenship, civil society, and the public sphere in relation to issues of development.
Peter van der Veer was previously a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam and at the University of Pennsylvania. He has held visiting positions at the London School of Economics, the University of Chicago, the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He is a Fellow of the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences and recipient of that Academy’s most prestigious award in the Social Sciences. He has been Chairman of the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) and Co-Chairman of the Indo-Dutch program in Alternatives in Development (IDPAD). He is a senior consultant of the India-China Institute and has been a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the New School in New York.
Professor van der Veer’s scholarly work includes ethnographic studies of pilgrimage to Ayodhya and of Sufi shrines in Surat as well as historical studies of nationalism in Britain, India and China. His major publications include Gods on Earth (Oxford University Press), Religious Nationalism (University of California Press) and Imperial Encounters (Princeton University Press). Currently his work focuses on the interface between culture, society and religion in India and China. He is the co-editor of a book on middle-class consumption in India and China and he is finishing a manuscript on religion and nationalism in India and China.
RSVP: [email protected]
The UrbanAsia series brings together experts from various fields to incite dialogue on the challenges and benefits of urbanization in a multi-disciplinary manner. The series attempts to catalyse action towards the sustainable growth of Asia’s cities.
Presented in partnership with Pukar, Studio-X Mumbai and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences