Ordinary Ecologies of Repair

'Marammat: Youth Holding the City Together' opens the ‘Ordinary Ecologies of Repair: Youth, Urbanity and Environmental Change in South Asia’ masterclass series, supported by the Urban Studies Foundation, and anchored at the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change, University of Minnesota. The series brings together practitioners across five South Asian cities – Delhi, Dhaka, Chennai, Karachi, and Hyderabad – to rethink climate adaptation from the ground up: not as a crisis response, but as everyday urban politics.

From an effluent-affected lake in Edulabad to Kancha Gachibowli, a scrub forest grown over revenue commons that young students took to the streets to defend, to municipal disruptions that leave neighbourhoods with burning waste, clogged drains, polluted air, or impossible roads — the Hyderabad node works through the idea of slow trust: how communities hold social life together when basic infrastructure fails and what relational work injures or makes improvisation possible under abandonment. This masterclass invites practitioners, researchers, students, and anyone who notices breakdown in their city to bring their own questions, vocabularies, and forms of attention to the conversation. It was held on June 5th, 2026 via Zoom.

'Dehat in Flux: Facing Climate Anxiety in Peri-Urban Delhi’ is the second masterclass in ‘Ordinary Ecologies of Repair: Youth, Urbanity and Environmental Change in South Asia’, supported by the Urban Studies Foundation, and anchored at the Interdisciplinary Centre for the Study of Global Change, University of Minnesota.
The series brings together practitioners across five South Asian cities – Delhi, Dhaka, Chennai, Karachi, and Hyderabad- to rethink climate adaptation from the ground up: not as a crisis response, but as everyday urban politics.

This masterclass builds on the case of hydro-anxiety in Ghummanhera, a rural village in south-west Delhi, to shed light on how local responses are shaped by the layering of historical relations with water onto uncertain hydrologies and incremental state interventions. By highlighting particular climate anxieties in metropolitan peripheries, the session invites scholars, practitioners, researchers and students to re-examine agrarian entanglements in the urbanisation trajectories of cities in the Global South. It was held on 8th June 2026 via Zoom.

Poromboke, Tamil for commons, has degraded in colloquial Tamil to a caste-loaded pejorative referring to worthless places and people. Revealing Chennai's unevenness as read through water and the lens of Poromboke, the city's youth will lead a masterclass on what ails the city, and what they are doing to repair it.

Anchored by Nityanand Jayaraman, a political ecologist and solidarity activist at Chennai-based Vettiver Collective, the session will include interventions by:

• J. Prasanth, Vishvaja Sambath - Chennai Climate Action Group
• Harish, Kavya, Dharani and Dinesh (School students) - Vyasai Dr. Ambedkar Pagutharivu 
• Paadasalai (School of Critical Reason).
• Benisha and Karthik Gunasekar, Aram Thinai

'Lyari Kaur Kinaray: Forgotten Ecologies in a Changed Climate' is the fourth  masterclass in ‘Ordinary Ecologies of Repair: Youth, Urbanity and Environmental Change in South Asia’, supported by the Urban Studies Foundation, and anchored at the Interdisciplinary Centre for the Study of Global Change, University of Minnesota.
The series brings together practitioners across five South Asian cities – Delhi, Dhaka, Chennai, Karachi, and Hyderabad- to rethink climate adaptation from the ground up: not as a crisis response, but as everyday urban politics.

The masterclass journeys the transformation of Karachi's Lyari River, which, alongside the Malir river, occupies Karachi’s residents’ imagination as drainage channels overflowing with waste that is dumped from different parts of the city. These historically rain fed rivers have experienced profound transformation from socio-ecological spaces to sites of infrastructural development and environmental degradation. The 2025 monsoon rains reminded residents of the presence of the long-forgotten Lyari river as it overflowed, revealing a profound disconnect between the city’s present and its geographical, ecological and cultural past. Climate change compels us to dive into these forgotten pasts, to weave together theoretical reflections, lived experiences, and on-ground knowledges by asking: What can Karachi learn from its past to navigate the current climate crisis?

The masterclass interweaves stories from the past and present in order to highlight the relationships of Lyari’s youth with the river, local responses, and the anxieties around its future. It was held on 22nd June 2026 via Zoom.

‘Panthakunja Park: Fight for the Urban Commons in Dhaka’ is the fifth masterclass in ‘Ordinary Ecologies of Repair: Youth, Urbanity and Environmental Change in South Asia’, supported by the Urban Studies Foundation, and anchored at the Interdisciplinary Centre for the Study of Global Change, University of Minnesota. The series brings together practitioners across five South Asian cities – Delhi, Dhaka, Chennai, Karachi, and Hyderabad- to rethink climate adaptation from the ground up: not as a crisis response, but as everyday urban politics.

This masterclass focuses on how the extension of the Dhaka Elevated Expressway through Hatirjheel Lake and Panthakunja Park, felling 2,000 trees, became a defining moment in Dhaka's urban transformation. It examines a project advanced in disregard of state laws, court directives, and what it reveals about neoliberal development's insensitivity toward life and environment. It was held on 2nd July 2026 via Zoom.