The Sarai programme at CSDS has arguably been South Asia’s most prominent and productive platform for research and reflection on the transformation of urban space and contemporary realities, especially with regard to the interface between cities, information, society, technology, and culture. Sarai began work in 2000 on issues of media, urban life, and the public domain, at a time when such issues were hardly on the horizon in India. This mix of urbanization, media life, and information is now part of any serious thinking about the contemporary. Since its inception, Sarai has initiated research projects on media urbanism, critiques of intellectual property, free software, art practice and the public realm, language and the city, and many others. It has supported independent fellowship programmes, and held a host of events including conferences, workshops, and performances. Sarai’s ongoing projects include:

Media and Information Infrastructures: Histories and Contemporary Practices

Infrastructure has come to be an increasingly important object of social science and cultural-historical research. From roads and railways to river and seaborne transport, from dams and irrigation canals to electrical circuits, from telegraphs and telephones to cable networks and satellite communication, the question of infrastructure has been key to the evolution of the modern and contemporary world. Information is part of this co-evolution from script, through print as well as contemporary moves to the digital.

This research initiative frames the category of ‘information’ both as a critical problematic-a way of describing the world and its constituent processes-and as an environment-a field through which we can enter the contemporary and connect to its past. It links media, urbanism, and the governance of populations, while initiating new debates on privacy, public access, and welfare.

Publications

BIOSCOPE: SOUTH ASIAN SCREEN STUDIES

One of Sarai's publication ventures is the academic journal ‘BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies’. This is a blind peer-reviewed journal being published by Sage Publications biannually since January 2010. It is primarily centred in the areas of film and media studies, but also engages a wider orbit of image and sound practices.

THE SARAI READER

The Sarai Reader book series has been widely recognized as a site for critical and creative thinking. Previous Readers include: 'The Public Domain': Sarai Reader 01, 2001; 'The Cities of Everyday Life': Sarai Reader 02, 2002; 'Shaping Technologies': Sarai Reader 03, 2003; 'Crisis/Media': Sarai Reader 04, 2004; 'Bare Acts': Sarai Reader 05, 2005; 'Turbulence': Sarai Reader 06'; 'Frontiers': Sarai Reader 07; and 'Fear': Sarai Reader 08. All the Sarai Readers are available for free. BAHURUPIYA SHEHR, a collection of stories, biographies, conversations, blog entries, and reflections about the city of Delhi. Published by Rajkamal Prakashan, 2007. TRICKSTER CITY, an extraordinary composite of writings on the city of Delhi, written over a period of two years by a group of 20 young people who live in different places in Delhi, and who have, over the last several years, sustained among themselves and with others around them, a relationship of writing and conversing about the city. Published by Penguin, 2010.