Introduction. Islamicate Lucknow Today: Historical Legacy and Urban Aspirations

Lucknow, a city once dominated by Shi’a nawab rulers, is now known for elites’ nostalgia for Islamicate pasts and masses seeking better futures. This special issue builds interdisciplinary dialogue about a city overwhelmingly represented in historical accounts and emplaces Lucknow within recent inve...

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Main Authors: Raphael Susewind, Christopher B. Taylor
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Centre d’Etudes de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud
Series:South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/3911
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author Raphael Susewind
Christopher B. Taylor
author_facet Raphael Susewind
Christopher B. Taylor
author_sort Raphael Susewind
collection DOAJ
description Lucknow, a city once dominated by Shi’a nawab rulers, is now known for elites’ nostalgia for Islamicate pasts and masses seeking better futures. This special issue builds interdisciplinary dialogue about a city overwhelmingly represented in historical accounts and emplaces Lucknow within recent investigation of urban India in which the city of nawabs is largely absent. Focusing on the old city of Lucknow where Muslims still demographically predominate, our introduction blends ethnographic exploration of cultural memory with new statistical data on the old city’s changing population, socioeconomic ‘backwardness,’ and segregation. We frame Lucknow’s Islamicate old city in contemporary times as a place where north India’s beleaguered Muslim minority negotiates between their remembered cosmopolitan past and a present burdened by structural violence and communal riots—blending (rather than choosing between) modernity and tradition, cosmopolitanism and provinciality, melancholia and aspirations, history and future.
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spelling doaj.art-72926bb12c8a4fa390ede9d02cd6bc1d2024-02-12T15:38:35ZengCentre d’Etudes de l’Inde et de l’Asie du SudSouth Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal1960-60601110.4000/samaj.3911Introduction. Islamicate Lucknow Today: Historical Legacy and Urban AspirationsRaphael SusewindChristopher B. TaylorLucknow, a city once dominated by Shi’a nawab rulers, is now known for elites’ nostalgia for Islamicate pasts and masses seeking better futures. This special issue builds interdisciplinary dialogue about a city overwhelmingly represented in historical accounts and emplaces Lucknow within recent investigation of urban India in which the city of nawabs is largely absent. Focusing on the old city of Lucknow where Muslims still demographically predominate, our introduction blends ethnographic exploration of cultural memory with new statistical data on the old city’s changing population, socioeconomic ‘backwardness,’ and segregation. We frame Lucknow’s Islamicate old city in contemporary times as a place where north India’s beleaguered Muslim minority negotiates between their remembered cosmopolitan past and a present burdened by structural violence and communal riots—blending (rather than choosing between) modernity and tradition, cosmopolitanism and provinciality, melancholia and aspirations, history and future.https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/3911Indian Muslimsurban studieshistoryLucknowdemographyhistoriography
spellingShingle Raphael Susewind
Christopher B. Taylor
Introduction. Islamicate Lucknow Today: Historical Legacy and Urban Aspirations
South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal
Indian Muslims
urban studies
history
Lucknow
demography
historiography
title Introduction. Islamicate Lucknow Today: Historical Legacy and Urban Aspirations
title_full Introduction. Islamicate Lucknow Today: Historical Legacy and Urban Aspirations
title_fullStr Introduction. Islamicate Lucknow Today: Historical Legacy and Urban Aspirations
title_full_unstemmed Introduction. Islamicate Lucknow Today: Historical Legacy and Urban Aspirations
title_short Introduction. Islamicate Lucknow Today: Historical Legacy and Urban Aspirations
title_sort introduction islamicate lucknow today historical legacy and urban aspirations
topic Indian Muslims
urban studies
history
Lucknow
demography
historiography
url https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/3911
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