Dr Ayona Datta (King’s College London)
Ayona’s broad research interests are in the critical geographies of smart urbanism, gender citizenships and urban futures in the global north and south. Her earlier research examined the connections between transnational urbanism, migrant citizenship, and translocal geographies of belonging among East European construction workers in London. This research continues to develop theoretical and empirical work on slums and informal settlements in exploring how marginal social actors live through the violence of law and urban development in India. This is particularly related to the resultant transformations in gender relations and citizenship struggles that occupy social, political and environmental spaces of action. Her more recent research seeks to advance theoretical and empirical work on postcolonial urbanism through the examination of smart cities as experiments in urban innovation and digital citizenships. She is author of 'The Illegal City: Space, law and gender in a Delhi squatter settlement' (2012) and co-editor of 'Translocal geographies: Spaces, places, connections' (2011) with Ashgate. Her co-edited book ‘Mega-urbanization in the global South: Fast cities and new urban utopias of the postcolonial state’ is in print with Routledge and another co-edited book ‘Ecological Citizenships in the global south’ is forthcoming with Zed Books.