RurbanSpace - social production of urban space

Bengaluru’s urban transformation has extended into its surrounding rural and semi-rural hinterlands, resulting in a polymorphic socio-spatial system in which rural and urban characteristics interact, adapt, and co-exist. The overlap of rural livelihoods, agricultural land, and open spaces in the expanding metropolitan region has led to shifts in land use, infrastructure, and everyday practices. These ongoing shifts have produced hybrid spatial conditions that blur the distinction between rural and urban, reflecting a transitional condition through which rural environments are reconfigured within a rapidly urbanising context. To study this core condition in detail, the research project (FOR5903) introduced a new term, ‘Rurbanity,’ to address the dynamic interplay of both urban and rural characteristics and elements in an interconnected yet evolving system. 

The research unit (B01) within the project aims to identify assemblages of rurbanity and address the specific question of how rurban space is socially produced in the Megacity of Bengaluru. The four key areas of focus for understanding space production are (1) contested topics of rurbanisation, (2) residential areas, (3) public spaces, and (4) spaces of labour and reproduction. Drawing upon approaches of assemblage theory and social placemaking, this project also uses a mix-method approach with both quantitative and qualitative  surveys, interviews, and mapping to understand how rurbanity is constituted.

This project is funded by the DFG and involves a team of flour members in project (B01), led by two Principal Investigators: Prof. Dr. Uwe Altrock, from Urban Regeneration and Planning Theory, at Universität Kassel, and Prof. Dr. Christoph Dittrich, an expert in Human Geography at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. The academic staff participating in this project includes Suryagayathri Geetha Devi, M.Sc., a Wissenchaflische Mitarbeiterin at Universiatät Kassel and Jannis Meyer, M.Sc., a PhD Student at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen.