Indivar Jonnalagadda
Education
- Ph.D., Anthropology and South Asia Studies, University of Pennsylvania
- M.A., Development Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai
- B.Sc., Statistics, St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai
Teaching Interests
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.
Research
My current book project examines the legally fraught property claims of slum-dwellers in Indian cities which bring into sharp focus the intersecting relations of caste, class and citizenship that shape the everyday lives of the urban poor. Through participant observation, semi-structured interviews, oral and archival history, and discourse analysis, I show that although the typical approach of city governments in the Global South is to make concessions for the settlement practices of poor populations, in sum the status of slum-dwellers as subaltern citizens is re-enforced through the use of racialized legal categories and differentiated policies and procedures. Framed by the push for “slum-free cities” on the one hand, and the increasing pressures of shrinking employment and receding social security for the urban poor on the other hand, my work shows how the urban slum is produced and governed, and how these processes reproduce unequal cities and citizenship.
Through various collaborations I am also currently pursuing projects which engage the following research interests: urban water bodies and their management; everyday land/revenue administration; affordable housing policy; the politics of caste associations; and the anthropology of markets in South Asia. I have previously conducted ethnographic research on sanitation infrastructure, housing rights, and the privatization of education.
Selected Publications
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. Open Access Link: 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