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Akash Jash is a PhD candidate in sociology at the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bengaluru, India. His PhD project focuses on the socioecological transformations of Bengaluru’s lakes, exploring their governance, urbanization, and role as contested commons. His research highlights the contestations surrounding lakes, addressing issues such as privatization and the lived experiences of communities impacted by these changes. By combining archival research with urban ethnography, his work examines the interplay of historical processes and contemporary urbanization in shaping these ecological resources.
Akash’s academic interests further include a broader engagement with qualitative research methodologies. He is particularly drawn to the study of archives—both institutional and noninstitutional—as well as oral history and ethnography, while exploring their potential to uncover nuanced social and ecological dynamics.
RCC Research Project: Urban Lakes as Contested Social Spaces: Colonial Legacies, Contemporary Urbanization, and Social Contestations in Bengaluru Lakes
Selected Publications:
- “The Technopolitics of ‘Urban Water’ in Colonial India: A Case Study of Hesaraghatta Water Works in Bangalore.” In “The (High Density) Metropolis and Region in Planning History,” ed. Phoebus Panigyrakis, special issue, International Planning History Society Proceedings, no. 20 (2024): 139–58. https://doi.org/10.7480/iphs.2024.
- Review of Choral Voices: Ethnographic Imaginations of Sound and Sacrality, by Sebanti Chatterjee. Society and Culture in South Asia 11, no. 1 (2024): 167–70. https://doi.org/10.1177/23938617241292894.
- “Save, Revive Urban Lake Networks.” Deccan Herald, May 3, 2024. https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/save-revive-urban-lake-networks-3005697.