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Global Urban History Project

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Istikhar Ali
 
Basic Information
Affiliation
Venu Charitable Society
Title
Researcher
Address
A-52

Panchsheel Vihar

South Delhi, DL  
110017
IND


Additional Information
About My Work
My research explores how urban processes intersect with marginalisation, migration, and mental health, with a particular focus on Muslim communities in India. I approach urban history through an ethnographic lens, tracing how socio-political transformations shape spatial segregation, everyday precarity, and resistance in neighbourhoods such as Jamia Nagar in Delhi. My work contributes to global urban history by examining how communal urbanisation and informal housing regimes are entangled with broader historical processes of postcolonial state formation, religious identity politics, and neoliberal governance.
I am especially interested in how cities become sites of both exclusion and adaptation—spaces where racialised and religious minorities navigate and contest their marginality. Drawing on interdisciplinary methods and grounded fieldwork, I aim to highlight the lived experience of urban inequality and its historical roots. My engagement with the GUHP is motivated by a desire to place South Asian urban experiences in dialogue with global patterns of segregation, informality, and resilience, and to contribute to comparative conversations that unsettle Eurocentric urban narratives. I see GUHP as a vital platform to connect with scholars working across geographies and disciplines on shared questions of urban transformation and justice.
Citations
How the Ghettoisation of India’s Muslims Adversely Affects Their Mental Health. Published in The Wire Science (2023).

Spatial Segregationand Systemic Exclusion: The Case of Jamia Nagar. Published in Centre for Development Policy and Practice (2024).
Professional Associations
1- IMISCOE
2- Indian Association for Social Science and Health (IASSH)