Abstract
India nominated the Durga Puja festival for UNESCO’s 2020 list of intangible heritage. Hand-crafted idols depicting religious deities are instrumental to the festival. They are largely produced by artists and craftsmen in Kolkata’s inner-city neighbourhood of Kumartuli. The idol-making industry operates locally and transnationally, drawing on seasonal labour from the rural hinterland. However, market forces and shifts in governmental policies have been transforming Kumartuli in recent years. The co-evolution of social and cultural practices with the idol-makers’ working and living spaces in Kumartuli is the focus of this chapter. The conceptual framing adopts elements of postcolonial and social practice theories. The methodology draws on a mix of architectural and human geography research methods. The chapter discusses emerging social, economic, and ecological challenges faced by the idol-making community as a result of recent transformations and reflects on the potential impact receiving UNESCO World Heritage status may have on the community and its practices.
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Notes
- 1.
Celebrated more widely in the eastern part of India for around 10 days in early autumn, Durga Puja involves the worship of Hindu deity Durga and her children, sculpted as clay idols. Larger households and neighbourhood associations commission these idols to be ritually worshipped within their communities. The number of such independent celebrations in Kolkata and adjoining areas are around 3000. Socio-culturally, Durga Puja is the first and grandest festival of the annual autumnal festive season of the Bengali Hindu calendar, followed by the Lakshmi and Kali pujas performed within a span of a month.
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Chakrabarti, D. (2022). Transitioning Infrastructures and Socio-Cultural Practices at the Idol-Making Cluster of Kolkata’s Kumartuli. In: Iossifova, D., Gasparatos, A., Zavos, S., Gamal, Y., Long, Y. (eds) Urban Infrastructuring. Sustainable Development Goals Series. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8352-7_10
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