Walking the streets: Embodied experiences of place making in Old Bhopal,India

Abstract

Most Indian cities are rarely conducive to walking, given their congested nature and dearth of pedestrian-friendly planning. Especially, old urban centres premised on heritage conservation and tourism are densely packed with pedestrians, vehicles, and vendors which obstruct smooth movement. Besides, their varied sights, sounds, smells and textures present a sensory overload, that often overwhelms the visitor. For the ethnographer, however, the very factors that disrupt movement present moments of pause, providing unexpected opportunities to observe and engage more deeply with the setting. Drawing on my experiences of walking in Old Bhopal, this paper argues that walking, as an embodied, sensorially-oriented spatial practice offers valuable methodological lens to engage with the heterogeneous, dense and often chaotic landscapes of Indian cities. I build on sociological perspectives that foreground the ‘everyday’, and phenomenological perspectives that centre the ‘body-in-place’ to locate the fragmented stories and obscure rhythms that shape everyday life in such contexts.