Alainagaram

Seacoasts around the world and the seas themselves have been integral to the history of urban settlement, in the labour and economic mobilities, and intercultural exchanges they facilitated. Tidal waters and shifting coastal sands also materially constitute cities, altering their geomorphology and biodiversity constantly, thus shaping their socio-spatiality. Yet, human geography, and urban geography, in particular, have paid curiously little attention to the sea and coastlines in their understanding of human-environment interactions. 

This podcast attempts to set up a cross-disciplinary conversation on seacoasts, cities and the urban processes they are entangled in. The liminal materiality of seashores with shifting sands, water, and salt, have historically engendered fluidity in inhabitation by fishing and nomadic communities. But these geographies are increasingly appropriated by developmental, state and environmental interests, their claims intensified by governmentalities of ecological vulnerability.

Thus, the podcast features accounts of seacoasts that examine human-environment interaction and contestation in the making of urban space. The first series has a geographical focus on the shoreline of Tamil Nadu, in the south eastern coast of India, where interventions post the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami have affected sea change so to speak. 

In initiating an academic conversation that locates itself within political claims on coastal geographies, many of which arise from indigenous and labour movements, the podcast also grapples with the question of who the broadcast is for and how academic dissemination can contribute towards effective political communication with and for the constituents of research. At this stage, there is no resolution offered to this question, which is hoped to, however, encourage further experiment on form and language of this initiative going forward. 

This webpage is hosted and maintained by the Department of Geography and Environment Communications Team. 

Series one