The workshop seeks to foreground informal workers in Indian cities within debates on climate change, urban governance, and transition policies. It invites critical scholarship and practitioner engagement that examines how climate mitigation and adaptation initiatives intersect with labour regimes, regulatory frameworks, urban citizenship, and everyday struggles for dignity and recognition. Rather than treating climate action as a technical or sectoral exercise, the workshop approaches it as a political and social process with uneven consequences across different groups of urban workers.
Organised under the Just Transitions on Indian Streets (JusTIS) project, which examines how climate change and urban transformations are negotiated on the streets of Indian cities, the workshop aims to create a space for dialogue between scholars, policy practitioners, and civil society actors. It seeks contributions that not only analyse inequality and exclusion but also engage with questions of governance reform, institutional practice, and pathways towards more equitable urban climate action.
Contributions could engage with, but are not limited to, the following themes and questions:
- Uneven experiences of climate change and urban transitions across caste, religion, gender, class, and occupational groups
- Historical and political-economic analyses of urban development and how they shape contemporary labour precarity and climate vulnerability
- Streets and urban public spaces as sites of work, climate exposure, regulation, and contestation
- The interaction between sustainability agendas and informal economies, including displacement, formalization, and restructuring of labour regimes
- Climate mitigation and adaptation policies and their implications for informal transport, street vending, platform work, sanitation, and other urban livelihoods
- Dignity, recognition, and urban citizenship in relation to labour, governance, and environmental policy
- The role of law, planning, and municipal governance in shaping workers’ rights, protections, and vulnerabilities under climate action
- Everyday practices of adaptation, coping, resistance, and collective organization among informal workers
By centering informal workers within analyses of climate change and urban transformation, the workshop aims to deepen debates on equity and governance in Indian cities and to generate insights that are analytically rigorous and policy-relevant.
Workshop Details
The workshop will be held in person in Bengaluru and will be organized as an intensive, discussion-oriented forum. It will feature pre-circulated papers and thematic sessions, with an emphasis on collective engagement and feedback. We anticipate that the papers presented at the workshop will form the basis of either an edited volume or a special issue.
The organizers will cover domestic airfare and accommodation for selected participants. Participants will be expected to attend the workshop in full and to circulate a draft paper in advance.
If you are interested in participating, please submit an abstract of 300–500 words to gaurav.mittal@ouce.ox.ac.uk by 19 June 2026. Abstracts should include your full name, current affiliation, and location, and should clearly indicate whether you would require financial support to travel to Bengaluru.
Timeline:
Abstract submission deadline: 19 June 2026
Notification of acceptance: 30 June 2026
Draft paper submission: 30 September 2026
Workshop: 19-20 November 2026 (tentative)