Indivar Jonnalagadda

Biography

I am an ethnographer, writer, teacher, and filmmaker interested in issues of social and environmental justice. My teaching interests include Sustainable Development, Urbanization, Inequality, Globalization, Contemporary Asia and Africa, and Modern South Asia, among other topics in International Studies. One of my primary teaching goals is equipping students with critical skills in conducting and presenting research. I hone multiple disciplinary and methodological skills as part of all my courses.

Education

• Ph.D. in Anthropology and South Asia Studies, University of Pennsylvania, 2023
• M.A. in Development Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, 2014
• B.Sc. in Statistics, St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, 2012

Research Interests

I am currently working on a book project titled Permanent Slums. While laws and policies around the world construct slums as temporary and interstitial urban forms which need to be improved, my book contends that slums today are permanent spatial features of Global South cities. My book reveals a series of legal, material, and political processes through which slums acquire this permanence and which consequently perpetuate unequal cities and citizenships. In contrast to the ideological goals of policies where slums are a problem of inequality to be solved through governance, Permanent Slums argues that in practice, slums entail a set of techniques and policies which reinforce inequalities

Through various collaborations I am also currently pursuing projects which engage the following research interests: urban water bodies and their management; everyday land governance; affordable housing policy; the politics of caste in cities; and the anthropology of markets in South Asia. I have previously conducted ethnographic research on sanitation infrastructure, housing rights, and the privatization of education.

Courses Taught

• ITS 201: Introduction to International Studies
• ITS/ATH 301: Intercultural Relations
• ITS 302: Issues in the Global South

Publications

Selected Publications:

Jonnalagadda, Indivar, and Thomas Cowan. 2024. “City Drafting: Property-Making and Bureaucratic Urbanism in South Asia.” City 28 (1–2): 7–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2024.2321024.

Jonnalagadda, Indivar. 2023. “Waiting for Dignity Housing: Slum Redevelopment, Cruel Governance, and Unaccounted Time in Hyderabad.” Cambridge Journal of Anthropology 41 (1): 69-86. Open Access Link: https://doi.org/10.3167/cja.2023.410106

Jonnalagadda, Indivar. 2023. “War on Slums: Slum-free Cities Programs and People’s Struggles to Stay Put in Visakhapatnam,” in Claims on the City: Situated Narratives of the Urban, edited by C. Yamini Krishna, Amy Phua Mei Yen, and Nisha Mathew, 231-244. New York: Lexington Books. https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781666941609/Claims-on...

Vidyapogu, Pullanna, and Indivar Jonnalagadda. 2023. “Cultural Ecologies of Urban Lakes: The Bathukamma Festival, Caste Associations, and Resource Claims in Hyderabad,” Economic & Political Weekly Review of Urban Affairs 58 (8): 57-61. https://www.epw.in/journal/2023/8/review-urban-...

Jonnalagadda, Indivar. 2022. “Of Political Entrepreneurs: Assembling Community and Social Capital in Hyderabad’s Informal Settlements.” Urban Studies 59 (4): 717–33. https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980211014120

Jonnalagadda, Indivar, Ryan Stock, and Karan Misquitta. 2021. “Titling as a Contested Process: Conditional Land Rights and Subaltern Citizenship in South India.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 45 (3): 458–76. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.13002

Jonnalagadda, Indivar. 2018. “Citizenship as a Communicative Effect.” Signs and Society 6 (3): 531–57. Open Access Link: https://doi.org/10.1086/699539

Selected Films

“The Composters”, 2021 (10 mins) - https://vimeo.com/547232229

“I’m not there”, 2021 (8 mins) - https://vimeo.com/518655416