Yamini Narayanan

Deep in the desert: Merging the desert and the spiritual through 4WD tourism

Abstract Our paper positions four-wheel drive (4WD) travel into the Australian desert by veteran or dedicated travellers as a spiritual experience in three ways: by considering the desert itself as a sacred space; the experience of such a journey as a form of ‘nature religion’; and by viewing the actual journey itself as pilgrimage. Our argument is informed by interviews with expert 4WDers to the desert. Our study might be useful in designing sustainable strategies for 4WD desert tourism, as well as for scholars from a variety of disciplines such as sustainability and environment studies, religious studies and tourism studies, to name a few.

Religion, Heritage and the Sustainable City : Hinduism and urbanisation in Jaipur

The speed and scale of urbanisation in India is unprecedented almost anywhere in the world and has tremendous global implications. The religious influence on the urban experience has resonances for all aspects of urban sustainability in India and yet it remains a blind spot while articulating sustainable urban policy.This book explores the historical and on-going influence of religion on urban planning, design, space utilisation, urban identities and communities. It argues that the conceptual and empirical approaches to planning sustainable cities in India need to be developed out of analytical concepts that define local sense of place and identity. Examining how Hindu religious heritage, beliefs and religiously influenced planning practices have impacted on sustainable urbanisation development in Jaipur and Indian cities in general, the book identifies the challenges and opportunities that ritualistic and belief resources pose for sustainability. It focuses on three key aspects: spatial segregation and ghettoisation; gender-inclusive urban development; and the nexus between religion, nature and urban development. This cutting-edge book is one of the first case studies linking Hindu religion, heritage, urban development, women and the environment in a way that responds to the realities of Indian cities. It opens up discussion on the nexus of religion and development, drawing out insightful policy implications for the sustainable urban planning of many cities in India and elsewhere in South Asia and the developing world.

Violence against women in Delhi: a sustainability problematic

Violence against women (VAW) has traditionally been of concern to feminists and cultural sociologists, and in recent decades, has also begun to be diagnosed and understood as a development problem. However, 20 women practitioners and scholars of development in Delhi have raised this issue explicitly as a sustainability problem while referring to the high rate of gender violence in the city’s public spaces. Sustainability is one of the most problematic political notions and scholars have been justifiably concerned that it has been hijacked to legitimise a variety of agendas, including unsustainable ones that contravene principles of social justice. However, it is also a compelling and powerful political concept and therefore, it is important to reconceptualise and reclaim from a feminist perspective, and from within the theoretical and empirical framework of equity, one of the central tenets of sustainability, and social justice. Therefore in this article, employing the primary research from Delhi, I use the notion of equity to frame the VAW in the city as a sustainability problem—the lack of which has an impact on urban design, which can constrain a city’s capacity to be sustainable.

Cow Protection as ‘Casteised Speciesism’: Sacralisation, Commercialisation and Politicisation

ABSTRACT Offering a more-than-human sociological analysis of cow protectionism in India, this article argues that the discourse renders bovines vulnerable because it reinforces two compatible and comparable oppressions: ‘casteism’ and ‘speciesism’. It privileges upper-caste Hindu nationalists whose identity politics are intertwined with sacralising native cows and their milk, producing ‘casteised speciesism’. Through interviews with experts engaged in cow protection, the article demonstrates that native Indian breeds are burdened with representing Hindu purity, while buffalo and crossbred or Jersey cows are exposed to exploitation and oppression comparable to the situation faced by Dalits. To be meaningful for the animals, protectionism needs to be embedded in an animal rights movement that employs vulnerabilities as a framework to deconstruct the oppression of non-humans.

Quo vadis, Delhi? Urban heritage and gender: towards a sustainable urban future

Historic architectural heritage is important to sustainable urban planning policy, particularly in cities that have heritage sites and/or themselves have ancient archaeological value. Delhi is one of the oldest living cities in the world. However, the vision of its planning policy is limited to valuing heritage for itself and for its economic value instead of also exploring the ways in the city’s heritage might contribute to the social organisation and utilisation of the urban public space. Particularly, like most national policy documents on heritage, it ignores the heritage/gender nexus, which has implications for the identity and status of women in Delhi, community development and ecological preservation. But twenty women practioners and scholars of development in Delhi referred to heritage as a challenge as well as opportunity for gender and urban sustainability when asked for their perspectives on the most important sustainability issues in the city. I argue that Delhi’s urban planning strategies must acknowledge the gender/heritage nexus to enable holistic and gender-inclusive urban development for the present and future generations of its citizens, which is an important thrust of the sustainability agenda.