Platform for Architectural Transfers in the Indian Ocean rim
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UPCOMING
CONVERSATION


Writing Histories
Thursday 13 August 2026, 5.00 pm IST

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Respondent: Dhara Patel
(TU Darmstadt)



The Social Object: Apprehending Materiality for Industrial Design Practice

Soumitri Varadarajan
(RMIT University)



The Social Object: Apprehending Materiality for Industrial Design Practice (Intellect Books) uses design history, material culture studies, and the social construction of technology to examine domestic spaces and objects in middle-class Indian homes, exploring how people make meaning of the things they buy, own, and gift. Chapter 3, "The Right Way," is an autoethnographic, autobiographical account of the author's grandfather's Tamil Iyengar Brahmin household in Chennai, using personal and family memory as a historical source. It offers a room-by-room spatial analysis of the 1931 Agraharam-style house, tracing concepts of ritual purity and pollution, food rules, and gendered space, before turning to structuralist frameworks (Bourdieu, Douglas, Saussure) to argue these practices form a coherent symbolic "cosmology."


Reimagining the gendered Mappila home: Women's 'alterative' practices to challenge domestic spatial power structures.

Akma Nazar
(University of Westminster)



This autoethnographic study examines how women are spatially disempowered in the consumption and production of contemporary Mappila Muslim homes in Kerala, India. Through granular analysis of women's micro and minor spatial practices — critical spatial practices demonstrating tactical resistance and moments of practising 'otherwise' — the research explores women's domestic spatial desires and the power structures constraining them, mapping broader ideological forces shaping the domestic sphere. Drawing on autoethnographic family research and critical feminist methods of orality, counterdrawing, and writing the feminine, it recognises women as active producers of spatial knowledge.



PAST
CONVERSATIONS
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PATIO Conversation No. 20 |
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PATIO Symposium |
Solidarities in the Indian Ocean rim
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Anthony Wako & Binita Bose
PATIO Conversation No. 17 |
Nathan Taylor-Gho & Malini Krishnankutty

PATIO Presentation |
PATIO & SAHANZ Conference 2025

PATIO Conversation No. 16 |
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PATIO Conversation No. 15 |
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PATIO Conversation No. 13 |
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PATIO Conversation No. 12 |
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PATIO Conversation No. 11 | 
Madhumati A., Zahra Yasmoon & Nirodha Dissanayake
PATIO Conversation No. 10 |
Nicholas Bill & Chee Kien Lai

PATIO Conversation No. 09 | 
Swati Chattopadhyay & Megha Chand Inglis

PATIO Conversation No. 08 |
Labib Hossain & Javairia Shahid

PATIO Conversation No. 07 |  
Shaikhah Ali Alsalhi & Ali Javid

PATIO Conversation No. 06 |
Sarover Zaidi & Saniya Siddiqui



PATIO Conversations No. 05 |
Mehwish Abid & Johann Peiris



PATIO Conversations No. 04 |
Meenakshi A. & Richa Shah


PATIO Conversations No. 03 |
Anthony Wako & Dhaval Chauhan


PATIO Conversations No. 02 |
Kairavi Maniar & Esa Shaikh


PATIO Conversations No. 01 | 
Chetan Sahasrabudhe & Ashmita Gupta





PATIO
CONVERSATIONS

PATIO Conversations are open to all; we aim to meet once a month, and scholars get an opportunity to share their work in progress. These presentations may be on a topic of their choice, which may relate to one or more of PATIO’s thematic umbrellas, or even critically reconsider and reconfigure our definition of particular themes. Participants may include independent scholars, Master's students, or aspiring PhD students as well as postdoctoral researchers who can contribute as speakers or choose to be an active part of the audience. Each such conversation foregrounds two scholars presenting their work for 20 minutes, followed by feedback from relevant respondents invited by the PATIO team in relation to the topic, and finally opening the discussion out to the larger audience. As such, PATIO
Conversations offer a platform for critical dialogue while both disseminating recently completed work and providing mentorship to aspirant researchers, including potential PhD candidates. These sessions provide researchers with the resources to further their work related to the state of the field by involving active experts and engaging with current bodies of relevant work, published or otherwise.

PATIO Conversations is directed by Saptarshi Sanyal and Sarah Melsens with the help of Thematic directors and Coordinators.