Abhay Vohra and Dario Jaeger
This session is dedicated to a discussion about Chandigarh’s modernist urban space using an interdisciplinary approach grounded in systemic design and critical urban anthropology, and revealing how socio-spatial hierarchies and informal adaptations emerge alongside formal planning. Originally envisioned by Le Corbusier as a symbol of India’s postcolonial modernity, Chandigarh now embodies tensions between rational spatial designs and the complex lived realities shaped by informal practices, fragmented governance, and evolving social dynamics. Guided by the theoretical frameworks of Henri Lefebvre’s Production of Space (1991), David Harvey’s Spaces of Capital (2001), and Partha Chatterjee’s Politics of the Governed (2004), this study reconceptualises space as dynamic, relational, and contested.
We start with a presentation that includes employing the Locales Framework (Fitzpatrick et al., 1996). Our methodological approach integrates multiple dimensions of space based on social anthropological research conducted in Chandigarh during April 2025. Methods included systematic visual anthropology, participant observation, informal interviews and conversational interactions. Our fieldwork explored how institutional fragmentation, symbolic governance, and invisible infrastructures intersect across key sites in Chandigarh. At Sukhna Lake, we traced how civic spaces are sustained through fragmented yet negotiated routines between agencies and workers. Along Gedi Road, a youth-centric corridor, informal maintenance and cleanliness efforts operate beneath the surface of performative governance. In Kaimbwala, an informal settlement on the urban periphery, residents navigate adaptive livelihoods and ambiguous governance arrangements. Across these settings, mobile waste workers and recyclers emerged as infrastructural agents of urban metabolism (Derrible et al., 2021), operating beyond formal recognition yet relevant to the city’s systemic functioning.
Our research shows that urban stability and cohesion in Chandigarh are sustained less by centralised planning than by everyday negotiation, informal practices, and adaptive routines. The findings call for a shift away from static, blueprint-based models toward a relational understanding of space; one that foregrounds interdependencies across diverse actors, institutions, and spatial scales.
We seek to gather methodological contributions and critical insights for shaping more inclusive and responsive urban environments through participatory and systemic design approaches, particularly within postcolonial contexts.
Gigamap illustrating the interrelations of civic structures, informal economies, and spatial practices in Chandigarh; created by Abhay Vohra (2025).
REFERENCES
- Chatterjee, P. (2004). The politics of the governed: Reflections on popular politics in most of the world. Columbia University Press.
- Derrible, S., Choudhary, M., Srikanta, S., & Cabezas, H. (2021). Urban infrastructure is not a tree: Integrating and decentralizing urban infrastructure systems. npj Urban Sustainability, 1, Article 18. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-021-00018-w
- Fitzpatrick, G., Kaplan, S., & Mansfield, T. (1996). The Locales Framework: Understanding and designing for cooperative work. Proceedings of the 1996 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. [Partial citation from later reprints.] https://www.academia.edu/download/40685502/10.1.1.25.1565.pdf
- Harvey, D. (2001). Spaces of capital: Towards a critical geography. Routledge.
- Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of space (D. Nicholson-Smith, Trans.). Blackwell. (Original work published 1974)
- Le Corbusier. (1957). The Chandigarh master plan. [Primary planning document; partial citation—original government archive or architectural library]
Profiles
Abhay Vohra
Design Researcher and Educator
As a systemic designer and design researcher based in Chandigarh, a city I have inhabited for most of my life, my perspective is grounded in personal experience, local knowledge, and professional practice. My work is committed to challenging dominant paradigms in urban planning and advocating for embodied, relational, and decolonial design approaches. Navigating the tension between global design discourse and situated local understanding, and an attempt to make that tension visible, accountable, and generative is part of my ongoing practice.
Dario Jaeger
University of Vienna
As an anthropologist and development researcher trained in Vienna, my practice is grounded in critical inquiry, field engagement, and a commitment to addressing structural inequality. Currently completing my Master’s Thesis in International Development at the University of Vienna, I specialise in the socio-political dynamics of South Asia and the wider Global South.
My perspective has been shaped by diverse experiences, from working and conducting research in Vienna’s shelter system, analysing ethnicity in federal power structures in the Russian Federation, to long-term field engagement with South- and South East Asia. These experiences continue to inform my current work on spatial geopolitics, postcolonial legacies, and conflict resolution. I approach research as a co-creative process shaped by encounters, doubt, and ethical responsibility. My work is driven by a desire to surface silenced histories and lived realities, challenge extractive knowledge paradigms, and stay accountable to the people and places that shape my understanding.
