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ARCHIVING PUKAR

A quarterly overview of PUKAR discussions and workshops Special Issue

PUKAR is pleased to announce the launching of four new projects

involving young citizens and their communities

PUKAR aims to democratize research and broaden access to knowledge among disenfranchised or weakly institutionalized groups and to create a space from which their non traditional and non expert knowledge can contribute to local, national and global debates about their own futures. All PUKAR’s new initiatives are based upon the same fundamental principle of research as a tool.

	Mythologies of Mumbai		Youth & Governance
		Action Research Project	Mapping the Small Towns

Following is a brief overview of these projects:

Mythologies of Mumbai

Supported by the Ford Foundation, India

Team:

Ajit Abhimeshi, Anita Patil Deshmukh, Kiran Sawant,

Shrutika Vasant Vaishali Shitole, Suhit Kelkar,

Tejal Shitole, Triveni Mane

This three year long project seeks to work with citizens of Mumbai – primarily students and teachers, but also others – as active agents of urban transformation through the process of research and knowledge building in two areas of the city – Dharavi and Girangaon.

archiving the living heritages

of Girangaon

The project has vital concerns with regard to the city’s ongoing globalization, which, it feels, tends to be exclusive and reinforces traditional social and economic hierarchies. The project contends that this is reflected most sharply in the areas of Girangaon – the erstwhile industrial centre of the city and Dharavi – supposedly the largest slum neighbourhood of the city.

Thus PUKAR seeks to engage with these concerns by inviting its citizens to participate in the process of inquiry into these changes, produce documentation and new knowledge through research practices.

The distinctive feature of this project is that the researchers involved in Dharavi and Girangaon are the residents of the areas themselves. They are witnessing a historical transformation in their locality and they will bring the local community's perspective to their findings, thus giving it a unique luster.

The project Team plans to draw upon the expertise of two PUKAR associates, Shilpa Phadke and Rahul Srivastava as principle consultants, to guide the process.

Youth & Governance

Supported by Sir Ratan Tata Trust

Team: 

Ajit Abhimeshi, Anita Patil Deshmukh, Kiran Sawant,

Shrutika Vasant Vaishali Shitole, Triveni Mane

advocate Mangesh Bansode,

Corporator Ward 203

This project wishes to take larger issues like water resource, redevelopment and encourage the local youth to do community based, citizens oriented research on these subjects. This will help the local leaders and governance authorities to create a discourse within the community. This will also create a substantial data base which could be used by the local governing bodies to further their policy making strategies. In addition, it will expose the youth to the governance structure, impacting their perceptions of citizenship and enhancing their own leadership skills. This project aims to give opportunities to the youth to participate in the decision making processes impacting their own future.

Action Research Project

Supported by Sir Ratan Tata Trust

Team:

Anita Patil-Deshmukh, Ganesh Naik, Harshad Jadhav, Indrani Dasgupta, Prakash Pandagale,

Santosh Takale, Santosh Thorat, Salil Kulkarni,

Tejas Vaghmare, Varsha Talekar

This project design involves the graduates of PUKAR’s flagship project; the Youth Fellowship Project, and creates an upward mobility space for them.  The main goal of this project is to assess the impact of the year long process of the Youth fellowship programme on its participants. PUKAR argues that the process of youth fellowship imparts many critical skills to the youth like analytic approach, leadership, communications, time management, negotiations, self confidence, and ability to make mistakes and learn from it. These become important assets for them in the globalized, porous world for their livelihood securities. PUKAR places a huge emphasis on the principles like democratization, participation and conscientization. PUKAR feels that these ideologies are very crucial for the development of the youth and transformation of their ideas about citizenship, both locally and globally.  

Mapping the Small Towns

Supported by Sir Ratan Tata Trust

Team:

Rahul Srivastava

According to the estimates of the UNDP and the WB, the growth in the world from now till 2020 will take place in Asia, in the cities where the population will remain under a million. The youth which is leading the population dividend now, will play the most crucial role in the leadership positions at various levels in these towns.  Therefore the very process of research, which allows the youth to be the knowledge producer, stake holder needs to be spread. The knowledge thus produced by youth is anchored in their locality and in their livelihood, thus addressing many issues of justice, equity and rights.

PUKAR (Partners for Urban Knowledge, Action and Research)

Address: 1-4, 2nd Floor, Kamanwala Chambers, Sir P. M. Road, Fort, Mumbai 400 001
Telephone: +91 (22) 6574 8152
Fax: +91 (22) 6664 0561
Email: pukar@pukar.org.in
Website: www.pukar.org.in

PUKAR is an innovative and experimental initiative that aims to contribute to a global debate about urbanization and globalization.