International Workshop on feminist and queer urban geographies

The Critical Geography South Asia (CGSA) Workshop was held at IISER MOHALI during June 29- July 3rd, 2019 with the theme "Feminist and Queer Urban Geographies"

This five-day international workshop envisaged the coming together of the varied strands within feminist and queer urban geographies to revisit Hayden’s 1980’s essay “What would a non-sexist city look like?” In this contemporary moment of neoliberal development reflecting in cities of the north and south through aspirations of ‘globality’ and impositions of the ‘smart city’, it is urgent to attend to the concerns of inclusivity - to bring people back into space. It is essential to celebrate the diversity that urban spaces offer - to the young, elderly, men, women, queer, black, white, brown, resident, migrant and so on - but equally to be attentive to their subjective experiences. Towards this end, deliberations were held in the different sessions of the conference followed by a field-trip to Punjab University to meet some transgender activists based in Chandigarh and a visit to the Sector 17 market. The discussions of the workshop were summed up and documented on the last two days which is currently being processed to co-author a feminist urban manifesto for our times.