Publications & Resources
Our faculty, students and researchers work together everyday to contribute to a better world by grappling with urgent problems we are facing in India. We conduct rigorous work to produce high quality learning resources and publications to contribute to public discourse and social change. Here, we feature a sample from our work for everyone to access. You can explore featured resources, policies, and the latest publications from the University.
To explore all the work of our University, please visit our publications repository.
Article
‘Songs of the lake’: Understanding cultural expressions of nature through dwindling folk-songs and mythologies in Bengaluru
in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies
Article
- Published
- Authors
Abstract
Culture-specific knowledge plays an important role in shaping environmental conservation. Yet we lack a holistic and contemporary understanding of how such local cultural systems interface(d) with ecologies, especially in the fast-growing cities of the Global South which face profound environmental challenges. In this paper, we explore nature-based cultural systems embedded in folk-songs to understand situated social-ecological histories of human-inhabited peri-urban landscapes in the city of Bengaluru in South India. Drawing on empirical observations from the city, we trace local imageries of erstwhile lake-based social systems through folk-songs, mythologies and oral narratives. We demonstrate how many of these cultural narratives, largely embedded within symbolic linkages to the lake ecology, continue to manifest themselves as folk expressions in the city, despite the fact that most of the lakes have been polluted or are managed via restrictions that prohibit village residents from accessing them as they once did for agriculture, livelihoods and domestic use. The songs are also rich reminders of socialities, which, despite being divisive and hierarchical to a large extent, were symbolically and materially embedded in nature.
Links
Article
Does the male Indian Robin Copsychus fulicatus share incubation duties?
in Indian BIRDS, New Ornis Foundation
- Published
- Authors
Abstract
During our frequent visits to the countryside of Solapur city, we observed an unusual behaviour in a pair of Indian Robins Copsychus fulicatus. It was a hot summer day in May 2021 and we noticed the pair collecting nest material such as grassroots, twigs, and hair. The nest was situated on a 1.5 m high mound of soil. To avoid disturbing them, we observed them from a distance of c. 9 m, with the help of 10x binoculars and 65x camera. The location of the nest was clearly visible — in a westward-facing hole, 1.4 m above the ground.
Links
- Published
- Authors
- Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability
- School of Development
Abstract
India is rapidly urbanising, but our cities are facing an environmental crisis. Whenever there is any development, for building a road, a flyover or a metro, the first casualties are trees. This story is our attempt to communicate the work we have done on gunda thopes to a wider public, hoping to partner with them to protect the city’s environment.