Aim:

To study the impact of globalising forces in Dharavi and Girangaon requires at least basic knowledge of key concepts associated with the research.

To discuss these concepts, and to introduce researchers to PUKAR's unique methodology and philosophy, as well as discuss timelines of research, the research group met with them for an orientation workshop.

 

In the first session, Anita and Rahul, with inputs from Shilpa, explained the reasons for PUKAR's existence. It aimed, they explained, to take research practices out of the purely academic spectrum and make it available to the common citizens. It would have young citizens investigate issues from their neighborhoods and daily lives, thus involving them in the essential yet overlooked aspects of their life in the city. In this way, research would become a tool for learning, awareness, and advocacy; and research itself would be transformed as it taps new sources, goes on to unexplored themes and gets out of its insularity; simultaneously, the researchers would also be transformed, by acquiring broader outlooks and a greater sensitivity to the public life around them.

Anita, Shilpa and Rahul went on to the theme of the current project, 'Mythologies of Mumbai', which investigates the impact of globalisation on the two communities, Girangaon and Dharavi. This research would be conducted by youth living in and around Dharavi & Girangaon, the two neighborhoods which are poised to go through a historical moment of transformation. Over a two-year period, the researchers would use various research methodologies available and investigate the impact of globalization on habitat, livelihoods, and educational institutes in and near these two localities. They will produce documentation and new urban knowledge through research practices fostered by PUKAR Team.

At this point a discussion of the key themes issued. What was globalisation? A worldwide circulation of ideas, capital, people and cultures? A hidden and immediate movement of forces changing the built landscape of the city? One obvious playground for the urban change caused by globalization was the redevelopment of Mumbai. Here, Rahul and Anita broached in the assembly the current topic of 'Mumbai becoming Shanghai'. This, slogan raised by politicians to describe their visions of Mumbai's vertical redevelopment means different things to different people. Rahul also shared his experiences of Tokyo, Japan, where he had gone as a researcher, and also what Shanghai had become; a city of unaffordability, of overcrowding and soullessness. The discussion naturally veered to whether the Mumbai of the future was really going to be. Whose agenda was this? Of the citizens? Of the developers? Whom would it really benefit? The rich? The not-so-rich? What would happen to Dharavi and Girangaon? All these questions were discussed in a free give-and-take between the session moderators and the researchers.
 

After a lunch break, the each team sat with one PUKAR associate to debate possible questions for the questionnaire. They eventually came up with about 40 questions, and these were discussed upon reconvening; moderators were Shrutika and Suhit. Plenty of debate and repartee took place between the researchers over a wide array of perspectives.

In the last session, a brief summary by Rahul and Anita followed. It was also generally agreed that a list of questions would be circulated later to each team for refinement. There were also to be at least three more workshops, one at the end of 2007, and two in the New Year, about key skills like interviewing techniques and the current Indian political scenario. Researchers' queries were addressed: i-cards, the profile of the interviewees, the administrative and financial details of the project.