The Community as Archive


Sarah Melsens (CNRS and FLAME University) & Ishita Shah (Curating for Culture)


 






In the early twentieth century, communities of stone and earth workers from the Wadar caste settled on what was then barren land on the outskirts of the city of Poona (Pune). The ample work available to them at urban colonial construction sites reduced their need to migrate for work. Today, the demand for stonework has decreased, and some of their descendants have turned to concreting, painting, or general contracting. What do Wadarwadi's community members think of this transition from stonecraft to contract work? How did they retain land that is now located in a prime area of the city? Drawing on community engagement related to these fundamental questions, as well as architectural observations and a social study from the 1970s, we demonstrate how the three-phased architectural history of the settlement reflects the changing positions of the community in the political economy of twentieth-century construction work. The talk will reveal the potential of ethnographic approaches to architectural historiography when archives are perceived to be absent. It will highlight the groundwork, visual tools, and processing work such a methodological approach involved.