Editorial
Volume 5 of Issues brings together essays on infrastructures and politics in Hyderabad, green transformations and memories in Germany’s Ruhr region, art, politics and displacements in Uganda, and cultural policies and practices in the city of Parramatta in Greater Western Sydney. Spanning diverse geographies and times, these essays are written in Telugu, German, Bengali and French, in addition to English. This volume’s contributors are Sneha Annavarapu (Yale NUS College), Ute Eickelkamp (University of New South Wales), Mahruba Mowtushi (BRAC University) and Sarah Nectoux (Western Sydney University).
In the opening essay, Annavarapu argues that Hyderabad’s potholes are far more than infrastructural ruptures on road surfaces that generate death and injury. They are sensorily experienced, and feature in everyday conversations as reminders of a neglectful state. Closely following the movements and lives of autorickshaw drivers, Annavarapu shows how potholes are not just interrupted infrastructures but also generate political subjectivities.
Eickelkamp explores the ecological reconstruction of the Ruhr in Germany from the coal and steel industries into a blue economy. The highly commended green transformation of the Ruhr is defined by the memorialization of the region’s industrial past. However, in her intricate recounting Eickelkamp argues that this future-oriented greening process washes away the political history and actions of the working class in the industrial memory of the region. Histories of labour and struggles are instead replaced by new spaces of consumption, tourism and leisure.
Mowtushi takes readers on a journey to Uganda, drawing us into the world of the African magazine Transition and its founder Rajat Neogy, a writer, poet and publisher of Bengali heritage, born and raised in Uganda. Through Transition, Neogy established an avant-garde platform for East African literature and culture in post-Independent Uganda in the 1960s – a time of flourishing culture but also incipient conflict for the country’s Asian expatriate population. Mowtushi historically and poetically weaves together migration, displacement and exile – a part of the broader mid-century pan-African experience –with Neogy’s life history, art and politics.
Nectoux discusses the cultural strategy of the City of Parramatta in the context of the culture-led urban transformation of peripheral cities. How will the City of Parramatta meet the cultural needs of its multicultural population through its cultural policy? Nectoux identifies the critical gap between technocratic cultural strategies and the lived experiences of urban residents in Parramatta.
On the eve of a difficult and fraught 2021, the Issues editorial team invites you to join and share these four bilingual essays that in their interests span over time, four continents, and diverse entwinings between heritage, history, culture, ecology, infrastructure, and the urban form.
Oznur Sahin, Liam Magee & Malini Sur
Editorial team
Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University
*Featured image by Malini Sur
