Avinay Yadav
Geography, Birkbeck, University of London
UBEL Pathway: Sociology
Supervisor: Dr. Mara Nogueira & Dr. Rosie Cox
Contact details/Social Media/Website:
About Me
I am motivated by a lifelong interest in understanding the urban world from its socio-spatial margins, beyond the grandeur of urban planning and the myth of the great city perpetuated by the culture industry.
Twitter: @bambaidilli
My Research
My research interrogates urban geographies of waste in a ‘model’, tier-II city in India under a new cleanliness policy. My research will make significant contributions to understanding how waste continues to shape cities, the reproduction of socio-spatial inequalities and the life of labour under new forms of power and governance regimes.
Investigating a tier-II city will offer insights in diverse forms of urbanism beyond the metropolises of the global south. My project will make key conceptual and theoretical interventions to critical debates on postcolonial urban studies by presenting a critical appraisal of India’s cleanliness “model” with far reaching consequences on the future of inclusive and sustainable cities, thereby expanding the repertoire of cities informing urban theory.
Impact of My Research
My research will contest the state-sponsored and mainstream media driven narratives of the ‘success’ of a pan-India cleanliness policy by bringing to fore the large-scale, adverse implications of the new policy on the governance of waste, environment, urban planning and informal labour practices.
Findings from the study can inform policy makers, civil society and other stakeholders. The project can facilitate the participation of stakeholders like informal waste workers during policy consultations. Similarly, a series of collaborative media outputs of this project like news articles, photo essays, dedicated social media accounts, podcasts, etc. in English and local languages will contribute to a critical understanding of the everyday effects of the policy, particularly from the perspective of those at the receiving end.