Speaker: Anita Patil-Deshmukh, Senior Director of PUKAR.

Based upon the seminal essay by Professor Arjun Appadurai, “Right to Research”, PUKAR ( Partners for Urban Knowledge, Action & Research) has developed a very unique methodology of community based participatory research where the youth from the community are empowered with the knowledge and skills of doing social science research that they use as a tool for an alternative pedagogy, advocacy, intervention and transformation. They become learners and the producers of new urban knowledge that is located in their community and embedded in their aspirations, concerns, curiosity and experiential learning. This has lead to creating a successful model of collaboration between a world-renowned academic institution, a small research collective and a deeply marginalized community in Mumbai. This model is scalable and replicable in any marginalized community globally.