Varun Patil

Local Research Assistant (Jan 2019 - March 2020)

Varun Patil is an independent researcher who is interested in researching on modern urban planning discourses and governance technologies. He has done his Masters and Mphil in Sociology from Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi. He had formerly worked as a research associate at the Indian Institute of Habitat Settlements (IIHS), Bangalore where he looked at how residents of “irregular” housing settlements claim space and access infrastructures by mobilizing caste networks, porous bureaucracies and electoral politics. He is drawn towards employing ethnographic methods of research as it enables him to document the agency of the popular classes in shaping the production of space in contemporary cities.