IN-PERSON Lisbon Livable Cities. Section B

Abstract

Focusing on the spatial, political, and theoretical margins of urban theory, this proposed paper maps the in/visible cemeteries and ghosts of Kolkata as a rich ground to analyse the city’s multifaceted and ambivalent memoryscape. It relies on a participatory walking methodology in spectral geographies, to examine how the city is haunted by the legacies of colonialism, ethnic division, and capitalist accumulation – as well as to retrace a forgotten cosmopolitan culture that continues to disrupt gentrification and ethno-religious separation. Through these marginal tales of loss, absence, care and attachment, the paper will stress the importance of communally-based knowledge, creativity, and situational analysis to produce alternative understandings of the city and its heritage. With relevance to cites worldwide, it suggests a path to problematize the homogenisation of urban heritage which promotes nationalist and nativist stories at the expense of more fragmented, critical, and cosmopolitan memories The paper therefore contributes to scholarship on spatial memory by noting the significance of burial sites and the rituals and stories associated with them, and by illuminating the transcultural aspects of spatial memory.