Learning the 'urban' from those I teach

"Home" as a teaching/learning heuristic

In recent months, I’ve had the opportunity to teach an introductory graduate course about cities at a social sciences college based in a south Indian city. I taught the course, which counts towards a degree in urban governance, over two intense weeks of interaction, flying down from Gurgaon to deliver the lectures and following up with online and email interactions.

Of the thirteen students in my course, most came from a smattering of disciplinary backgrounds like economics, history and even biotechnology; only a couple had either an undergraduate background in urban studies or exposure to urban issues through work experience in fields like journalism. In effect, this cohort had not thought systematically and academically about cities before.

I found the students to be sincere, hardworking and eager to learn. Barring a few, they exceeded my expectations in coming prepared to class, having read what I thought were challenging theoretical texts. But while they could summarise these texts, I could sense that they could not really engage with them. For the ideas to resonate, I realised they needed to ground the readings in something familiar.

Our class engagements were designed to allow students to bring in examples from their own lived experiences. In these interactions, ‘home’ emerged as an evocative category, an indispensable heuristic for thinking, feeling and learning about cities. They drew on their sense of rootedness and belonging and the intense familiarity with one or multiple places where they had lived and where they still had connections to test out the ideas they found in the texts. For some, it was enough to find the familiar, so theory was not scary anymore. For others, using their own grounded knowledge to see patterns and critique well-established concepts imbued a new kind of confidence in navigating the ‘urban’.

This strategy proved to be a rich learning experience for me as well. I learnt about new places and received insights on how young people seeking careers in urban governance and policy sought to bring transformation. Interventions by a student from Thrissur, a temple town in Kerala, revealed the frustrations young people experience when public life is dictated by rigid religious tradition and stifling moral codes that prevent new forms of entrepreneurship and consumption. Another student provided many examples from Nellore, a mid-sized city in Andhra Pradesh, where he grew up, which helped the class understand the economic and social relationships between city cores and peripheries.

Students brought in interesting perspectives about well-known cities, too. One student’s experience of working in Kolkata’s health system shed light on how megacities are struggling to provide basic amenities to large, diverse populations. Narratives from Mumbai taught us all about how the present is shaped by the complex and intertwined histories of many migrant communities over time. Experiences about the lack of safety for female students in cities like Delhi brought a strong gender lens to discussions about economic opportunities, public space and housing in urban India.

The sensitivity and curiosity of students gave me hope. Even those less fluent in English or generally less confident contributing to class discussions tried to present their unique perspectives through PowerPoint presentations and written assignments. What touched me most was their willingness to be vulnerable in class or in personal interactions. When they stayed back to ask specific questions, some of them shared very personal, sometimes traumatic, stories like failed attempts to gain public employment, personal tragedy, and experiences of discrimination and family pressure. I felt highly privileged to be trusted enough to be given even those slight glimpses of their life truths. It was evident to me that all these experiences, good and bad, were meaningful in shaping their trajectories and helping them understand (and explain to me) their motivations for pursuing this particular degree and holding onto their present ambitions.

My interactions with my students showed me how a sense of home and belonging-ness, shaped in no small part by urban publics, acted as an anchor even as they were asserting themselves to pursue individual aspirations within a traditional, patriarchal and often conservative social milieu.

But what do those who cannot call any place ‘home’ hold onto? I cannot help but think about the millions of young people running away from disaster, war, and oppression and young refugees and asylum seekers whose worldview is shaped by uncertainty and chaos. Where place cannot be an anchor and belonging is an amorphous idea, what other forms of home, real or imaginary, do people hold onto?