Reframing the Urban via Southern Spatial Religiosities: Mapping Sufi Geographies in the Indian National Capital Region

This is an interdisciplinary project that brings together geographers and conservation architects with a shared interest in the manner in which faith can shape space.  It aims to study the Sufiscape of the National Capital Region in India, along with its overlays of colonial and post-colonial urban planning, and also the unplanned urbanization that it has accrued. This region has been a prominent centre of Sufism since this faith tradition arrived in India several centuries ago, manifested architecturally by a complex of Sufi shrines (dargahs) and associated sites (khanqahs, chillas, mosques, etc.). Sufi sites have long been hubs of innovation – as places that have challenged religious orthodoxies, encouraged syncretism, diluted gender inequalities, birthed artistic creativity, and absorbed and directed economic flows, a ‘culture of urbanity’ may be said to characterize them.  Now, as minority religious spaces, how do they participate in one of the most rapidly urbanizing parts of the world? 

The project team is based on an equitable collaboration between three different institutions located in disparate geographies – the University of Leeds in the UK, Presidency University in Kolkata, India and Cultural Resource Conservation Initiative (an architectural conservation firm) in Delhi, India. 

The project is funded by the British Academy’s ‘Knowledge Frontiers: International Interdisciplinary Research Projects’ programme and foregrounds the career development of early career researchers. Dr. Radhika Borde (University of Leeds) is the Principal Investigator and Dr. Saurav Chakraborty is the Co-Investigator (Presidency University, Kolkata, India).