Seetharama Bhat, H. 2021. Ways of Monsoon Air: Entanglements and Stories of Matter, Space, and Time. PhD thesis University of Westminster Architecture and Cities https://doi.org/10.34737/v7026
| Title | Ways of Monsoon Air: Entanglements and Stories of Matter, Space, and Time |
|---|---|
| Type | PhD thesis |
| Authors | Seetharama Bhat, H. |
| Abstract | The air of the monsoon is a powerful force of matter that makes, co-constitutes and is made by its many worlds. Having emerged from the context of the Monsoon Assemblages project, this doctoral thesis asks how the air of the monsoon re-orients, informs, animates and confronts the way we view Delhi and how the city animates, opens up and assists in the distribution of its matter and politics through the monsoon. Through the process of the work, the thesis travels to a variety of locations, temporalities, matters and times to engage with the sticky complexity of the liveliness of (and living because of) monsoonal atmosphere. I develop something that I call A Monsoon Air Methodology which I propose is a way of meandering with and because of monsoonal capacities and forms – in inviting generosity of the way different knowledges view the monsoon, and letting monsoonal sway mediate those stories – in concluding that the monsoon is a knowledge system too. Enveloped between an introduction with notes for a methodology and a conclusion are three chapters. They are about the winter haze, an invasive plant species and the question of the death of monsoonal time – amidst a range of linkages and materials. The work is very interdisciplinary and gathers a variety of methods and approaches in engaging and deepening an understanding of the role of the monsoon and anthropogenic materiality as they agentially mingle in the co-production of narrative, writing, worlds, possibilities, pasts and the broader implication of monsoonal thought – investing in its opacity, survivability, uncertainity, multispecies ecology and permeation. Through this work, I ask how thinking and sensing through the monsoon and its ways – can open up, share, distribute and make insights of matters, places and times, for liveability, in these precarious troubles of the Anthropocene. |
| Year | 2021 |
| File | File Access Level Open (open metadata and files) |
| Publisher | University of Westminster |
| Publication dates | |
| Published | Jul 2021 |
| Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.34737/v7026 |