[csaa-forum] ANU Sociology Seminar Series: "Unfolding plans: Projections, time, and political possibilities in Mumbai", Dr V. Chitra (ANU), Monday 14 April

[Thao Phan]

Hi all, we’re pleased to announce details for the next seminar in the ANU
Sociology Seminar series:
https://sociology.cass.anu.edu.au/events/unfolding-plans-projections-time-and-political-possibilities-mumbai



*Unfolding plans: Projections, time, and political possibilities in Mumbai*

Speakers: Dr V. Chitra, ANU



Date/time: Monday 14 March, 12-1pm, AEST

Location: Room 4.69 RSSS Building, and on Zoon



Join Zoom Meeting
https://anu.zoom.us/j/85293466550?pwd=aHRXMVFZMUM4T1o2U0pNYWhkWjFJZz09

Meeting ID: 852 9346 6550
Password: 0000



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*Unfolding plans: Projections, time, and political possibilities in Mumbai*



This paper explores how plans unfold over time, shaped by urgency, waiting,
and tactical foresight. Based on long-term ethnographic research in Mumbai,
it follows the revision of the city’s urban plan to show how plans operate
simultaneously as images and as documents, moving through different stages
and lifespans—from initial sketches to official drafts, public reviews, and
eventual implementation or expiration.

These shifting forms give plans different powers at different moments,
making temporality a key lens for understanding how planning shapes the
world. The paper traces how the city’s fisher community engages with this
slippery nature of plans, timing their political actions to intervene in
the bureaucratic apparatus.

These documents often exist in anticipation—ready to be activated when
opportunities arise—and are used to assert presence, negotiate rights, or
resist displacement. Ultimately, Chitra argues that the temporalities of
planning—when something is drawn, submitted, or displayed—can be just as
significant as what the plan contains, revealing planning as a space where
time, power, and possibility intersect.

*V. Chitra* is an anthropologist and visual artist based at the School of
Archaeology and Anthropology at the Australian National University. Her
research intersects environmental studies, science and technology studies,
and the visual arts. Chitra's recent book, Drawing Coastlines: Climate
Anxieties and the Visual Reinvention of Mumbai's Shore (Cornell University
Press, 2024) looks at how technical images such as weather infographics,
surveys, and plans remake Mumbai's coasts and coastal futures.
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