On the Research Project


  Urban and architectural historiographies of 20th-century India frequently interpret built environments as products of policymaking and design, often neglecting the everyday realities of construction practices on-site in their analyses of urban and architectural transformation. The histories of the workers involved in the creation of these built environments remain largely unexamined. The Omitted from History (OMHI) project seeks to explore how construction labor, contractors, and engineers on India’s building sites mediated processes of modernity during the crucial transitional period between the colonial era and the present (1910-1992). With a particular focus on Pune, the project draws on the active involvement of local architects, contractors, engineers, construction workers, and their descendants, to co-create histories of working lives, technology, and political economy as they unfolded on construction sites and influenced the development of urban spaces.

OMHI poses a set of fundamental inquiries: Who performed what tasks on construction sites? How was labor recruitment and supervision structured? To what extent did the mechanization of construction processes and the introduction of new materials, such as cement concrete, challenge existing notions of skill and work hierarchies? What do experiences of success—such as timely project completion, socio-economic mobility, and technological innovation—and instances of failure, such as structural collapses, insecurity, scarcity, corruption, disputes, and cost overruns, reveal of the socio-material dynamics of the worksite? Did the upscaling and commercialization of housing projects in Pune during the 1970s correspond with significant shifts in on-site practices? Ultimately, OMHI aims to demonstrate how construction site practices constituted a "field of possibilities" that shaped the urban built environment.

In its effort to incorporate perspectives "from below," the project utilizes the power of visual documentation, specifically construction photographs, to recover and preserve memories of construction work. The first phase of data collection involves the creation of a digitized archive of historical photographs of building sites in Pune and surrounding areas. The second phase engages in person-to-person and social-media-based interactions, using these photographs to elicit and record  lived memories.

Innovation is expected in two key areas:
  • Historiographically, OMHI illuminates how local traditions, as well as (neo)colonial influences, shaped working lives and built environments in India, and how these factors intersected with broader societal, economic, and political transformations during India’s period of high modernity.
  • Methodologically, OMHI advances the field of construction historiography by experimenting with innovative participatory techniques for data collection and interpretation. These techniques include both digital methods (social media engagement) and analog methods (photo-elicitation interviews and workshops), offering new avenues for the exploration and understanding of construction history.


updated 23/01/2025
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OMHI is a global postdoctoral fellowship awarded to Sarah Melsens by the European Research Council (ERC) under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) of the Horizon Europe programme (Grant No 101108229). It is coordinated by the French National Centre of Scientific Research (CNRS) and hosted by the Centre for South Asian and Himalayan Studies, Cesah, at the EHESS in France. It involves a two-year research stay at FLAME University in Pune. Project duration: 1 May 2023 to 30 April 2026.