Sabika Zaidi

I am a Master in Environmental Studies student with a specialization in Urban and Regional Planning, at the Faculty of Environmental Studies (FES), York University. Before joining York, I was an Urban Fellow at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), Bangalore and trained as an Architect at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. My research focuses on the modes of land development and governance in urban and peri-urban revenue villages of New Delhi.

My Major Research Project at York University specifically examines the practices of anti-democratic neoliberal governance and the diverse range of coercive tactics used to produce conditions of violence and exclusion during the implementation of land development policies. Through the lenses of ethnography and idiosyncratic knowledge, I study the politics of identity and place, and its influence on the outcome of state led initiatives to develop spaces in a particular way, for very specific purposes.