3.1 Understanding the field 3 Research Methodology

The area of my study is to look at the post event spaces which become spaces for negotiations and transformation. The reserved land becomes the field for this enquiry. But as the reserved land spans across more than three hundred acres, it is necessary to scope down the field to manageable scale for this study. The reserved land or at least part of it, to the best of my knowledge, is stuck between two power structures. One from the DCR, and another from the judiciary. A court case looms around this place, which makes it difficult to get access to document any of the field, as one gets pushed out right from its entry. The land owners filed a case against the corporation after the 2013 Kumbh Mela for:

1. When the corporation took the land from the owners, they scattered 4ft deep gravel all across the fields. (The rationale behind this was to prevent marshy land during the Kumbh Mela, as it is celebrated during the monsoon.

2. The corporation laid infrastructure like underground drainage lines and water supply, on a contract basis which said that after the event ends, the pipelines would be taken back.

3. The corporation failed to manage this exercise, which meant that some of the underground pipelines along with their chambers still remain on site, making it difficult to manoeuvre on site.

4. As the majority of the economy generated on site was through agricultural and pastoral practices, the gravel made it difficult for the land to produce a harvest. Farmers who could afford the removal of gravel, spent money from their own pockets to remove them.

This change in the landscape pushed the owners to further negotiations with the power structures and brought out a stay order from the court to continue with their daily practice, which again was of negotiations. This landscape of politics, for few, provided an opportunity to change a functioning economy from an agrarian to a urban services based, but the form of this was quite different.

3.2 Lens

To understand the spatiotemporal nature of space, these become important lenses to look from. Hence some of the questions that emerge are:

• Who owns the land?

• Who are the inhabitants/ tenants? What activities take place on the land during the Kumbh Mela?

• What activities take place on the land post the Kumbh Mela?

What spatialities have emerged on the land?

• What kind of opportunities emerge to shape activities and spatialities?

• What kind of negotiations emerge to shape activities and spatialities? What is the form of life that emerges in the post event spatialities?

• What are the aspirations of the owners and the tenants?

3.3 Analytical Framework

The broad categories of analysis that emerge are of:

• Ownership and Tenure

• Activities

Spatialities

Opportunities

• Negotiations

• Form of life

Aspirations

To study these analytical frameworks, one would need to study the timeline of space, and how the form of space changes over time. Time becomes the field to ask these questions. As more cases come forward, each case will generate a timeline which would help me study and understand the mechanics and logics of the temporary.

3.4 Narrative Generation

To draw the timeline, would mean that I would be drawing out the biography of the space and what politics take place in them. This will not only help me show how the timeline grew, but also help compare with the existing narratives of the temporary to further prove or disprove my argument.

4.2 Case 2: House and its extensions

4: Streets

4.5 Compiling field findings