On the Research Project
Did the Indianisation of the contracting, engineering, and architectural professions impact work hierarchies on the building site? How did building site workers experience increased mechanisation and the adoption of new materials such as concrete? Did the upscaling and commodification of housing projects in 1970s Pune coincide with changes on the building site?
In its endeavour to include perspectives ‘from below’ the project depoloys the power of building site photographs to gather memories of construction work. The first phase of data collection will result in an archive of digitised historical photographs of building sites in and around Pune. The second phase involves person-to-person and social-media interactions that draw on these photographs to elicit and record lived memories.
Innovation is expected on two fronts:
- Historiographically, OMHI sheds light on how local traditions and (neo)colonial influences impacted working lives and built environments and how these factors intersected with societal, economic and political developments during India’s period of high Modernity.
- Methodologically, OMHI advances the state of the art in construction historiography by testing novel participatory techniques for data collection and interpretation, both in digital and analogue form.
> Data Management Plan
> Research and Workshop Protocol
> Ethical Assessment
> Informed Consent Form (EN)