CHAIRPERSON
Asst Prof Sneha Annavarapu, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, National University of Singapore
ABSTRACT
In this talk, Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria will be sharing some insights from his recently published book Mumbai on Two Wheels: Cycling, Urban Space, and Sustainable Mobility. Mumbai is not commonly seen as a bike-friendly city because of its dense traffic and the absence of bicycle lanes. Yet the city supports rapidly expanding and eclectic bicycle communities. Exploring how people bike and what biking means in the city, Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria challenges assumptions that underlie sustainable transportation planning. Arguing that planning professionals and advocates need to pay closer attention to ordinary people who cycle for transportation or for work, or who choose to cycle for recreation, Anjaria draws on his book Mumbai on Two Wheels: Cycling, Urban Space, and Sustainable Mobility to offer an alternative to the thinking that dominates mainstream sustainable transportation discussions. Building on insights come from bicycle activists, commuters, food delivery workers, event organizers, planners, technicians, shop owners, and architects. Through ethnographic vignettes and descriptions of diverse biking experiences, it shows how pedaling through the city produces a way of seeing and understanding infrastructure.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria does research on mobility, cycling and the social life of streets in urban India. He is Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Brandeis University, where he teaches courses on urban studies, qualitative and ethnographic research methods and South Asia. He is also Faculty Director of Professional Development at the Brandeis University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. His latest book, Mumbai on Two Wheels: Cycling, Urban Space and Sustainable Mobility was published by University of Washington Press in 2024. He is also the author of the 2016 book The Slow Boil: Street Food, Rights and Public Space in Mumbai and co-editor of the book Urban Navigations: Politics, Space and the City in South Asia. His writings have appeared in a variety of publications, including American Ethnologist, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, City and Community, among others.
