The politics of pyaar (love) in India's construction industry

The politics of pyaar (love) in India's construction industry
Presented by Professor Namita Dharia from the Rhode Island School of Design

Set on a large real estate construction site in India’s National Capital Region, this lecture discusses the Hindi word for love—pyaar— and its everyday interpretations and expressions. Graffiti surreptitiously drawn by construction workers serve as aesthetic expressions of life narrations of various classes of workers and connects to the emotions and aesthetics of doing work in construction. Professor Dharia engages with different forms of wall drawings on the architecture under construction to argue that the political economy of the construction industry is undergirded by the politics of pyaar.

Part of the CDTS Visiting Lecture Series