Diss. Linköping : Univ., 1999.

“Sabha theater” is a genre of Tamil language comedy theater that started in Madras (Chennai) in the period following India’s 1947 independence. Its name comes from the fact that the amateur drama troupes rely on cultural organizations known as sabhas for patronage, but the theater also has a very specific aesthetic and narrative style. Sabhas are known for their patronage of classical music and dance, but many also support amateur theater troupes. These organizations, along with the press and academics, create a notion of “good” taste in Chennai, India. All three fields are dominated by the high caste Brahmin community, which thus both constructs and embodies the idea of good taste in the city. The identity of Brahmins, as the taste-makers of the city, is influential in shaping middle-class culture in Chennai. I argue that this identity is not best visible in tradition, because performances of the classical arts and the response of connoisseur audiences to them reveal an ideal that is frozen in time. I look instead to something spontaneous: humor. The fact that elite Tamil Brahmins choose to join sabhas or attend sabha dramas is not to say that the plays are ideal representations of Tamil Brahmin culture or good taste. In actuality, the discourse about the plays has created two factions within the Tamil Brahmin community, the most vocal of which dismisses them as “just comedy.” I engage with both voices through case studies of plays that have remained popular with audiences over the years. I also consider such things as how the contemporary political climate and development of mass media have affected live theater in Chennai in terms of aesthetics, personnel, scripts, production, and patronage. / text

Cette thèse s'intéresse à l'interaction des transactions dans le montage opérationnel de grands projets immobiliers et industriels. Depuis deux décennies à Chennai (capitale du Tamil Nadu, Inde), les pouvoirs publics font la promotion des Corridors de développement économique, qui transforment des hectares de terre, voire des villages entiers. Si les politiques publiques, la gestion des organisations ou les conflits qu'entraîne l'émergence de ces projets impliquant des acteurs multiples et exogènes sont étudiés, peu de travaux s'attachent à décomposer les mécanismes anticipés, les multiples formes de négociations et les contextes historiques dans lesquels s'inscrivent ces projets. En étudiant la rencontre de la localité avec le projet et les reconfigurations de la société locale qu'elle implique, nous changeons de perspective : nous donnons à voir comment les forces locales s'approprient ces vecteurs de croissance pour asseoir ou défendre leur position sociale. A travers l'étude ethnographique de villages, nous décrivons et renseignons les représentations associées au sol et les pratiques d'acquisition foncière afin d'éclairer les micro-logiques : ces processus fragiles et incertains dans lesquels les acteurs s'impliquent de façon coordonnée ou non. Cette approche soulève les paradoxes dans la concrétisation des projets, qui malgré leur planification, découlent tant de rapports de forces que de compromis. Elle rend également compte de la production d'innovations foncières qui articulent les normes juridiques, les jeux politiques, les croyances et appartenances sociales qui s'imposent / This thesis examines the interactions of transactions entailed in the process of setting up residential and industrial Mega-Projects. In Chennai (capital of Tamil Nadu, India), the regional government has been promoting Economic Development Corridors, which, for over two decades, have been transforming hectares of private agricultural lands, public lands and even entire villages. Although research on public policies, foreign private investment or land conflicts is well documented, little attention has been paid to the upstream mechanisms, the multiplicity of negotiations and the historical context in which those projects develop. By studying the interaction between villages and projects and the social and spatial local transformation taking place, this work presents a new perspective : how do local actors appropriate those vectors of growth to strengthen and defend their social position? Using ethnographic methodology, we describe and examine the meaning of land and land acquisition practices in order to bring to light the "micro-logics": fragile and uncertain processes in which actors implement non-linear and flexible strategies. This approach allows highlighting the paradoxes inherent in the process of project concretisation and which result from power relationships and compromises. In addition, it allows to unpack "land innovations processes" which emerge from legal norms, the interplay of political forces, beliefs and social roles

This thesis explores the workings of the information technology (IT) industry in the South Indian city of Chennai, and its impact on middle-class identity formation. It adopts a distinctly gendered approach in its analysis, while also commenting on themes that travel beyond conventional feminist research. It draws on a variety of qualitative sources, including 61 interviews with IT employees, managers and executives, diversity consultants, IT union leaders, labour rights activists, bureaucrats and college placement officers; participant observation at IT conferences, protest meetings, and political events, as well as limited observation on the 'office floor'; and diverse documentary material, including government and industry reports, websites and legal frameworks. The aim of this narrative-driven thesis is to capture some of the complexities of IT employees' lived realities, contextualised within the local and global processes that impact this transnational industry. The thesis begins with an exploration of specific practices within the industry that contribute to employees' heightened insecurity and situates fledgling attempts at collective action on labour issues within performances of 'middleclassness'. It then unpacks the construction of gender roles by and through the industry, while identifying sites of contestation and agency for employees. This is followed by a closer examination of the industry's diversity and inclusion initiatives, specifically those concerning workplace sexual harassment, as seen through a socio-legal lens. Finally, it problematises the hegemonic figure of the 'techie' through an analysis of IT employees' multiple identities and their articulation within the workplace. Collectively, the data chapters challenge the normativity of discursive framings of employees and policies within the industry. More broadly, this thesis calls for 'thick descriptions' (Geertz 1973: 6) of labour relations in local contexts, while emplacing these within transnational capital circuits. It also argues for a more nuanced interrogation of the fluidity of class formation through employment in certain industries, particularly in postcolonial settings.

Privatization of the public realm is rampant in modern cities. Public space accessibility and usage is often determined by inhabitants’ socio-economic background in the mega cities of the developing world as well. The case of Chennai, a city of 9 million people drawn from different regions in India, is used in this project to understand this phenomenon and evolve an alternate approach to urban public space design and use, in which citizen-led initiatives are encouraged, instead of being ignored, by mainstream urban planning and design processes. Chennai is one of the fastest growing cities in the world today. Conventional planning has failed to direct this growth towards creating sustainable urban environments for all, and has instead encouraged lopsided development that caters only to the affluent sections. This trend has affected public spaces as well, which are now centered on consumption and dependant on heavy investment in real estate and technology. This has a considerable impact on the spectrum of socio-economic groups that are able to access and use them. The project questions the prevalent situation, and focuses on three aspects that have been ignored in recent times. The first (Everyday Urbanism) is explored as a method to revitalize the second (Public Spaces), in order to achieve the third (Sustainable Lifestyles) as a long term goal. This is done using analysis and design in parallel, and results in a proposal for a new design process and through it, scale specific design solutions for Chennai’s public spaces that will create a high quality of life for inhabitants of the heavily populated, demographically diverse and socio-economically fragmented city.

This thesis assesses sanitation realities experienced by peri-urban slum dwellers in Chennai, India, to investigate whether rapid economic growth translates into pervasive safe sanitation, otherwise a threat to human security. This is in line with the Sustainable Development Goals of ‘leaving no one behind’. The empirical methodology consists of qualitative comparative case studies approached through rapid appraisal. At least 5 interviews at each of the 10 different slum settlement locations within the Chennai Metropolitan area were conducted. Both the locations and the settlers were conveniently sampled. The settlements were chosen as they mostly lay in a rapidly urbanizing area. The selection of interviewee was determined by availability, yet leaning towards women who are more vulnerable when lacking safe sanitation facilities, and who are the primary caregivers in the household. The research found that out of the 10 settlements visited, 5 habitually practiced open defecation, as no sanitation facilities were available. Hence some settlers were restricted in their freedom to be safe from emotional or physical harm: threatened by dangerous pathogens released into the environment, and insecurities due to lack of privacy. Conceptually the thesis applies an understanding of how affecting influences in individual history and living environment impact upon an individual’s conscious mind, connecting the capability approach to consciousness research. The thesis argues how settlers, overlooked by public services, and subjected to the dangerous and humiliating practice of open defecation, are faced with mental health issues and a diminished likelihood to productively engage, and exercise agency for human growth.

<div>The security, resilience and sustainability of water supply in urban areas are of major concern in cities around the world. Their dynamics and long-term trajectories result from external change processes, as well as adaptive and maladaptive management practices aiming to secure urban livelihoods. This dissertation examines the dynamics of urban water systems from a social-ecological-technical systems perspective, in which infrastructure and institutions mediate the human-water-ecosystem relationship. </div><div><br></div><div>The three concepts of security, resilience and sustainability are often used interchangeably, making the achievement of goals addressing such challenges somewhat elusive. This becomes evident in the international policy arena, with the UN Sustainable Development Goals being the most prominent example, in which aspirations for achieving the different goals for different sectors lead to conflicting objectives. Similarly, the scientific literature remains inconclusive on characterizations and quantifiable metrics. These and other urban water challenges facing the global urban community are discussed, and research questions and objectives are introduced in Section 1. </div><div><br></div><div>In Section 2, I suggest distinct definitions of urban water security, resilience and sustainability: Security refers to the state of system functioning regarding water services; resilience refers to ability to absorb shocks, to adapt and transform, and therefore describes the dynamic, short- to medium-term system behavior in response to shocks and disturbances; sustainability aims to balance the needs in terms of ecology and society (humans and the economic systems they build) of today without compromising the ability to meet the needs of future generations. Therefore, sustainability refers to current and long-term impacts on nature and society of maintaining system functions, and therefore affects system trajectories. I suggest that sustainability should include not only local effects, but consider impacts across scales and sectors. I propose methods for the quantification of urban water security, resilience and sustainability, an approach for modeling dynamic water system behavior, as well as an integrated framework combining the three dimensions for a holistic assessment of urban water supply systems. The framework integrates natural, human and engineered system components (“Capital Portfolio Approach”) and is applied to a range of case study cities selected from a broad range of hydro-climatic and socio-economic regions on four continents. Data on urban water infrastructure and services were collected from utilities in two cities (Amman, Jordan; Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia), key stakeholder interviews and a household survey conducted in Amman. Publicly available, empirical utility data and globally accessible datasets were used to support these and additional case studies. </div><div><br></div><div>The data show that community adaptation significantly contributes to urban water security and resilience, but the ability to adapt is highly heterogeneous across and within cities, leading to large inequality of water security. In cities with high levels of water security and resilience, adaptive capacity remains latent (inactive), while water-insecure cities rely on community adaptation for the self-provision of services. The framework is applied for assessing individual urban water systems, as well as for cross-city comparison for different types of cities. Results show that cities fall along a continuous gradient, ranging from water insecure and non-resilient cities with inadequate service provision prone to failure in response to extant shock regimes, to water secure and resilient systems with high levels of services and immediate recovery after shocks. Although limited by diverse constraints, the analyses show that urban water security and resilience tend to co-evolve, whereas sustainability, which considers local and global sustainable management, shows highly variable results across cities. I propose that the management of urban water systems should maintain a balance of security, resilience and sustainability.</div><div><br></div><div>The focus in Section 3 is on intra-city patterns and mechanisms, which contribute to urban water security, resilience and sustainability. In spite of engineering design and planning, and against common expectations, intra-city patterns emerge from self-organizing processes similar to those found in nature. These are related to growth processes following the principle of preferential attachment and functional efficiency considerations, which lead to Pareto power-law probability distributions characteristic of scale-free-like structures. Results presented here show that such structures are also present in urban water distribution and sanitary sewer networks, and how deviation from such specific patterns can result in vulnerability towards cascading failures. In addition, unbounded growth, unmanaged demand and unregulated water markets can lead to large inequality, which increases failure vulnerability. </div><div><br></div><div>The introduction of infrastructure and institutions for providing urban water services intercedes and mediates the human-water relationship. Complexity of infrastructural and institutional setups, growth patterns, management strategies and practices result in different levels of disconnects between citizens and the ecosystems providing freshwater resources. “Invisibility” of services to citizens results from maximized water system performance. It can lead to a lack of awareness about the effort and underlying infrastructure and institutions that operate for delivering services. Data for the seven cities illustrate different portfolios of complexity, invisibility and disconnection. Empirical data gathered in a household survey and key stakeholder interviews in Amman reveals that a misalignment of stakeholder perceptions resulting from the lack of information flow between citizens and urban managers can be misguiding and can constrain the decision-making space. Unsustainable practices are fostered by invisibility and disconnection and exacerbate the threats to urban water security and resilience. Such challenges are investigated in the context of urban water system traps: the poverty and the rigidity trap. Results indicate that urban water poverty is associated with local unsustainability, while rigidity traps combined with urban demand growth gravitate towards global unsustainability. </div><div><br></div><div>Returning to the city-level in Section 4, I investigate urban water system evolution. The question how the trajectories of urban water security, resilience and sustainability can be managed is examined using insights from hydrological and social-ecological systems research. I propose an “Urban Budyko Landscape”, which compares urban water supply systems to hydrological catchments and highlights the different roles of supply- and demand-management of water and water-related urban services. A global assessment of 38 cities around the world puts the seven case studies in perspective, emphasizing the relevance of the proposed framework and the representative, archetypal character of the selected case studies. </div><div><br></div><div>Furthermore, I examine how managing for the different dimensions of the CPA (capital availability, robustness, risk and sustainable management) determines the trajectories of urban water systems. This is done by integrating the CPA with the components of social-ecological system resilience, which explain how control of the different components determines the movement of systems through states of security and resilience in a stability landscape. Finally, potential feedbacks resulting from the global environment are investigated with respect to the role that globally sustainable local and regional water management can play in determining the trajectories of urban water systems. These assessments demonstrate how the impact of supply-oriented strategies reach beyond local, regional and into global boundaries for meeting a growing urban demand, and come at the cost of global sustainability and communities elsewhere.</div><div><br></div><div>Despite stark differences between individual cities and large heterogeneities within cities, convergent trends and patterns emerge across systems and are revealed through application of the proposed concepts and frameworks. The implications of these findings are discussed in Section 5, and are summarized here as follows: </div><div>1) The management of urban water systems needs to move beyond the security and resilience paradigms, which focus on current system functioning and short-term behavior. Sustaining a growing global, urban population will require addressing the long-term, cross-scale and inter-sector impacts of achieving and maintaining urban water security and resilience. </div><div>2) Emergent spatial patterns are driven by optimization for the objective functions. Avoiding traps, cascading failure, extreme inequality and maintaining global urban livability requires a balance of supply- and demand-management, consideration of system complexity, size and reach (i.e., footprint), as well as internal structures and management strategies (connectedness and modularity).</div><div>3) Urban water security and resilience are threatened by long-term decline, which necessitates the transformation to urban sustainability. The key to sustainability lies in experimentation, modularization and the incorporation of interdependencies across scales, systems and sectors.</div><div><br></div>