Walking the Walled City Cover Image

Walking the Walled City
Walking the Walled City

Gender and the Dérive as Urban Ethnography

Author(s): Sharanya M.
Subject(s): Gender Studies, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology, Social differentiation, Rural and urban sociology, Sociology of Art
Published by: Hrvatsko etnološko društvo
Keywords: dérive; Delhi; urban ethnography; gender; Abdelhafid Khatib; Situationism; performance; walking;

Summary/Abstract: This paper focuses on the possibilities and limitations of the contemporary dérive as a form of ethnography in contemporary Delhi. The dérive, which originated as the Surrealist déambulation and subsequently became the Situationist dérive in the late 1950s, has now been re-imagined by walking artists and practitioners. In seeking to locate the Situationist dérive as an ethnographic practice within (Old) Delhi through Abdelhafid Khatib’s dérive, this paper dwells on the experimental origins of the Situationist dérive and its journey through contemporary pedestrian practices, and asks how walking as a gendered, autoethnographic practice of the city might help narrate and navigate Indian urban spaces.

  • Issue Year: 46/2016
  • Issue No: 39
  • Page Range: 198-212
  • Page Count: 15
  • Language: English