Nipesh Palat Narayanan

Nipesh Palat Narayanan is an Assistant Professor at the Centre Urbanisation Culture Société, of the INRS.

He did his undergraduate studies in architecture, postgraduate studies in Urban Design and doctorate in geography. He has worked on various architectural and urban projects in India for 10 years, including development plans, affordable housing, infrastructure planning, and participatory neighbourhood redevelopments. Prior to Canada, he has worked at universities in India, Switzerland, Australia, Sri Lanka, France, and Italy.

• Assistant Professor, INRS – Urbanisation Culture Société (since 2022)
• Research Fellow, Laboratory for Social Geography (LAGeS), University of Florence, Italy (2020-2022)
• Research Associate, Laboratoire de Science Sociales (PACTE), University Grenoble Alpes, France (2020-2022)
• Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Sociology, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka (2018-2020)
• Research Fellow, Australia India Institute, University of Melbourne, Australia (2017)
• PhD in Geography, University of Lausanne, Switzerland (2014-2018)
• MArch in Urban Design, School of Planning and Architecture Delhi, India (2009-2011)
• Bachelor of Architecture, National Institute of Technology Calicut, India (2003-2008)

Manufacturing South: Analysing the geography of hegemonic categories and knowledge production

Funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)

Conceptualized with Yacine Boujija and Leslie Touré Kapo

Categories construct knowledge by sieving through and compartmentalizing the complexities of our world. However, categories are constructed from specific locations and represent certain epistemic positions, i.e., categories are deeply political. The Global South is one such category, which has grouped the world along racial and class lines. This project intends to decipher the manufacturing and mobilization of the Global South in/from the Global North academia (social sciences). The key aim of the project is to investigate contemporary research practices to understand the formation of the Global South (or its active manufacturing). The project tracks research projects funded by key social-science research funders from the Global North, over this millennium (2000 onwards) and map them onto locations from where they have been investigated. The aim is to test if the research from the Global North is producing characteristics that are then associated with the Global South, leading to production of hegemonic and narrow knowledge of our world.

Analysing food districts to understand urban imaginaries and knowledge production: A Montréal-Delhi comparison

Funded by Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (FRQSC)

Cities are complex entities and we, as users of these entities, have developed various ways to understand and imagine them, a process referred to as urban imaginaries. One common manifestation of urban imaginaries is the labelling of cities or its parts, e.g., smart city, ecological neighbourhood, downtown, China Town. These labels are used both by practitioners (urban planners, city executives, policymakers, real-estate developers, etc.) and the general public, to imagine and make sense of the city. The project intends to investigate the formation and mobilization of urban imaginaries by analysing food districts (or quartiers gourmands) via a comparative study between Montréal (Canada) and Delhi (India).

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Infrastructure led urbanization and cultural transformations 

Funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) – Institutional Grant

In the 21st century, most notable after the 2001 UN declaration of an urban age, urbanization has become synonymous with development. In this changed discourse, as many authors have remarked, urbanization has started to become a goal in itself, rather than a process. With urbanization becoming a goal, governments are investing in big infrastructures to augment urbanization rate, and this is resulting in massive and very fast changes, both physical and cultural. This project intends to investigate one such infrastructure led urbanization projects in Kerala, India. After more than 20 years in discussion, Kerala is constructing a circa 1300 KM highway that cuts across multiple agglomerations. This project provides an opportunity to understand infrastructure led urbanization and its impact on the cultural landscape.

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Branding Montreal through its infrastructure: the example of public food markets and digital data centers.

Funded by the réseau Villes Régions Monde (VRM)

Conceptualized with Morgan Mouton et Julia Frotey (INRS).

The project focuses on the manufacturing of Montreal’s brand image through the study of two interlinked objects: (i) the creative economy with the promotion of culinary cultures (public markets), and (ii) the digital economy (data centers).

Production of the city by public markets in Montréal and Delhi

Funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) – Institutional Grant

Public markets are hubs (literally and metaphorically) where the relationship between the economy and the society, co-construct the city. Public markets serve the corporal needs of the city dwellers, but they also contribute to the imaginaries of the city. This relationship between the public market and the city presents an opportunity to investigate both the tangible and intangible production of the city. The project compares urban markets in Montréal and Delhi, to understand their role in constructing urban imaginaries and its impact on everyday practices.

Southern cities and inclusion: epistemological and theoretical perspectives

Funded by the réseau Villes Régions Monde (VRM)

Conceptualized with Thi Thanh Hien Pham, Université du Québec à Montréal.

This project investigates the production of knowledge and formation of hegemonies in the academic literature. It aims to systematically and critically analyse studies on the notion of inclusion in and of cities in the south, from two perspectives. First, the conceptualization of the south and second, conceptualization of inclusion. Thus, we use the south to structure our analysis and to critique the category itself.

Constructing the urban via food : Comparing Montreal and Delhi

Funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) – Institutional Grant

Culinary cultures which are usually associated with a region are being more and more studies and understood from the confines of the city. Cities are both branded and imagined using food. Contrarily, there are regulatory frameworks (planning and others) that restrict food especially in public places (e.g., restrictions on street food). This contradiction, of simultaneously promoting and restricting food, presents an opportunity to study food in order to understand how cities are understood/ pictures/ worked-upon (both by the state and the residents). This project intends to be a pilot, to develop a larger project on the construction of urban via food, by juxtaposing cases from Montreal and Delhi.

Social Construction of Canals – Uncovering rationalities of aesthetics and public health in Colombo

Funded by – British Council South Asia Small-Scale Research Project Scheme (2019-21) (Link)

Formal-Informal dichotomies of South Asian cities: Juxtaposing World-class Delhi and the Colombo Megapolis

Funded by – Swiss National Science Foundation (2018-2020) (Link)

Tracing the public discourse of slums in India

Funded by – Swiss National Science Foundation (2017) (Link)

Teaching

EUR8240: Urban Transitions in the Global South (Transition urbaine dans les pays du sud)

Course Plan 2024 (winter) (Link)

Course Plan 2025 (winter) (Link)

Course Plan 2026 (winter) (Link)

        EUR8111: Reading the city (Regards sur la ville)

Course Plan 2026 (winter) (Link)

PhD Supervision

Mamdou Bah, PhD in urban studies (INRS-UCS), started 2024 “Social infrastructure: The cases of the informal street food sector in Conakry and Guinean diaspora cuisine in Montreal between urbanity and integration.”

Gladice Alida Makamno Talom, PhD in urban studies (INRS-UCS), started 2023 “Urban planning in sub-Saharan Africa: analysis of the effects produced by urban planning documents that were not implemented in Douala (Cameroon)”

Francis Tangmouo Tsoata (co-direction with Catherine Trudelle), PhD in urban studies (UQÀM – Université du Québec à Montréal), started 2022, “Urban agriculture as a cultural and conflictual catalyst in Cameroon: enriching urban political ecology in the global south”

Masters Supervision

Eliakim Bellemare-Lapointe, Masters in urban studies (INRS-UCS), started 2025 “Geographical imaginaries and culinary cultures: A Montreal-Delhi comparison”