Space, Nature and Society
Tel.: 044 63 55186Room number: Y25 L 22Presence times: Mon-Thu 09:00 - 17:00nitin.bathla@geo.uzh.chWebsite
Bio
NITIN BATHLA is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Geography at UZH and a lecturer in the Department of Architecture at ETH Zürich. He is the author of the award-winning book Researching Otherwise: Pluriversal Methodologies in Landscape and Urban Studies and the incoming Debates and Interventions editor at the journal Urban Geography. His teaching and research focus on urban studies and political ecology, with particular attention to commoning, landscape restoration, labour, and infrastructure geography. As part of the Spotlight project at UZH, he will be investigating the political ecology of light pollution in Switzerland. Nitin’s transdisciplinary and pluriversal research approaches actively combine academic inquiry with artistic practices such as filmmaking and socially engaged art. His 2020 ethnographic feature-length film, Not Just Roads, centred on India’s ongoing highway program. The film premiered at several major film festivals and won the SAH Film Award in 2022, among other notable accolades.
Education
Dr. sc. ETH Zürich, Urban Studies (Distinction)
MAS Urban Design, ETH Zürich
Bachelor of Architecture, Institute of Enviornmental Design, Vallabh Vidyanagar, India
Current teaching
GEO299: Small Group Teaching
Books
Researching Otherwise: Pluriversal Methodologies for Landscape and Urban Studies, Nitin Bathla (ed.), 2024. gta Verlag, May 2024. https://doi.org/10.54872/gta/4692
Unearthing Traces, Denise Bertschi, Julien Lafontaine Carboni, Nitin Bathla (eds.), 2023. EPFL University Press. https://www.epflpress.org/produit/1428/9782889155507/unearthing-traces
The Seasonal Arrival City: Designing for migrants 'transient right to the city', Nitin Bathla & Jennifer Duyne (eds.), 2022. ETH Wohnforum ETH CASE
Journal Articles
Inhabiting more-than-human ecologies of Extended urbanization: Unruly leopards amidst urban-wild enmeshment in the Northern Aravalli region. Geoforum (156), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104123
Transhumance Urbanism as an Urban Otherwise: Inhabiting Agrarian Incompletion at the intersections of Extended Urbanisation-Extended Ruralisation, 2024. Antipode (6) 56, 1-22, DOI: 10.1111/anti.13085
Extending dialogues on the urban, 2024. Dialogues in Human Geography, 1-6, DOI: 10.1177/20438206241242469
The atmospheres of massiveness: The politics and times of the maybe in Southern megaregions, 2024. The Geographical Journal, 1-10, DOI: 10.1111/geoj.12577
Nature and the extended city: Wasteland governmentality, the sacred, and anti-wasteland politics in the Aravalli region, 2023. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 1-20, DOI: 10.1177/25148486231187811
The Highway Revolution. Enclosure and State Space in India. Extended Urbanisation. Tracing Planetary Struggles. Christian Schmid, Milica Topalović eds. Birkhäuser, 2023. 345-378. DOI: 10.1515/9783035623031-010
Inhabiting the extensions, 2023. Dialogues in Human Geography, 1-23, DOI: 10.1177/20438206231168896
Extended urbanisation and the politics of uncertainty: The contested pathways of highway corridors in India, 2022. The Geographical Journal, 1-15. DOI: 10.1111/geoj.12441
Planned illegality, permanent temporariness, and strategic philanthropy: tenement towns under extended urbanisation of postmetropolitan Delh, 2021. Housing Studies (6) 37, 868-888. DOI: 10.1080/02673037.2021.1992359
Reframing the contested city through ethnographic film: beyond the expository on housing and the urban, 2021. N Bathla, KE Papanicolaou. International Journal of Housing Policy (3) 22, 351-370. DOI: 10.1080/19491247.2021.1886028
Radical housing and socially-engaged art: Reflections from a tenement town in Delhi’s extensive urbanisation, 2020. N Bathla, S Garg. Radical Housing Journal, 35-54. DOI: 10.54825/HFEH7946
Decentring the Open City: Examining Openness at the Agrarian-urban Frontiers in India, 2020. Trialog (4) 135 - Open City, 15-19. Research Collection
The Metabolism of Tenement Towns on a Planet of Fast Fashion, 2019. OASE 104. The Urban Household of Metabolism, 50-55. DOI: 10.3929/ethz-b-000408394
Book Reveiws
Against the Commons. A Radical History of Urban Planning, 2024. Planning Theory, 1-6, DOI: 10.1177/14730952231212292
After suburbia: Urbanization in the twenty-first century, edited by Roger Keil and Fulong Wu, 2024. Journal for Urban Affairs, 1-3, DOI: 10.1080/07352166.2024.2343556
Lively Cities: A review in the minor key. Book review forum, 2024. Urban Geography 45 (3), 495-498, DOI: 10.1080/02723638.2024.2308417
Democracy beyond the state. How cities can transform democracy, 2024. City, 1-3, DOI: 10.1080/13604813.2024.2355804
The architecture of social reform: housing, tradition, and German modernism, 2023. Housing Studies Journal 38 (4), 744-746, DOI: 10.1080/02673037.2023.2200225
An Excursion into the Fragments of the City, Fragments of the City – The Making and Unmaking of Urban Worlds by Colin McFarlane, 2020. Society and Space. Link
AMO/Rem Koolhaas (ed.) 2020: Countryside: A Report. Cologne: Taschen, 2020. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 44 (5), 945-946, DOI: 10.1111/1468-2427.12960
Book review: Suburban Planet: Making the World Urban from the Outside In, 2019. Urban Studies 56 (10), 2179-2181, DOI: 10.1177/0042098019836051
Newspaper and Magazine Articles
This is not an academic conversation, 2023. Trans - Silence 43, 105-109.
DOI: 10.3929/ethz-b-000634051
Reparatur und Fix unterscheiden - Zu einer Ökologie des Wiederaufbaus, Jason W. Moore, Patel, Raj, Milica Topalović, Alex Nehmer, Nitin Bathla, 2023. Arch+ The Great Repair, 16 – 29. Link
Urban autopia: the architecture of car-oriented capitalism, 2022. Architectural Review – Energy, 84-87. Link
India’s highway revolution, 2022. Architectural Review – Transit, 88 – 91. Link
The Time of the “Maybe” in Massive Urbanization:
Reflections from a collective of Southern urban scholars, 2021. Society & Space Forum. Link
By sealing Delhi NCR borders, Covid has ended fluidity between where laborers live and work. M Naik, N Bathla, 2021. The Print. Link
Housing the migrant worker, 2020. The Indian Express. Link
Complexities and Contradictions in Forensic Architecture: In conversation with Eyal Weizman. N Bathla, 2020. Trans Magazine. Spannung, 103-108. Link
The Delhi-Mumbai Expressway Is a Short-Cut to Socio-Ecological Disaster.
N Bathla, A Singh, 2019. The Wire. Link
Zomias of Reality. N Bathla, 2018. Trans - Reality 33, 103-108. Link
Research and Teaching Experience
Postdoctoral Researcher; Space, Nature and Society; University of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland. 2024-present. Supervisor: Norman Backhaus, Professor, Department of Geography.
Lecturer and Senior Postdoctoral fellow in Urban Sociology,
and Coordinator of the Landscape and Urban Studies (LUS) Doctoral School; Department of Architecture, ETH Zürich. 2021-present
Lecture and Scientific Assistant in Housing and Urban Studies; ETH Wohnforum – ETH CASE, Department of Architecture, ETH Zürich. 2018-2020
Studio Instructor & Lecturer; School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi. 2018-2020
Research lead & Curator, Urban Age Award & Urban Age Conference, Delhi; LSE Cities & Alfred Herrhausen Society. 2013-2014
Films and Video Installations
Agrarian Questions in an Uncertain World, 2023, 18 minutes. Video Installation
Not Just Roads, 2020, Ethnographic Film, 67 minutes. India/Switzerland. Producer, Director, Cinematographer, Sound www.notjustroadsfilm.com
The film premiered at over 30 international film festivals such as the London Architecture Festival, Copenhagen Architectural Festival, DocAviv 2021, Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam, and Dharmshala International Film Festival. The film won the Society of Architecture Historians Film Award and was nominated for several other jury awards. The film was screened in classrooms of several universities including Humboldt University, York University, Syracuse University, KTH Stockholm, and University of Luzern.
Metropolis 2020, 2020, 8 minutes. Video Installation, exhibited in Zurich, Berlin, and Delhi.
Podcasts
Book Review Roundtable – Waste and the City, Verso, with Colin McFarlane, Julia Wesley, and Vanesa Castan Broto, 2024, Urban Political Podcast.
Book Review Roundtable – Lively Cities with Maan Barua, Lindsay Howe, Ghazala Shahabuddin, Ravi Sundaram, and Thomas Crowley, 2024, Urban Political Podcast.
Book Review Roundtable – Against the Commons: A Radical History of Urban Planning with Sai Balakrishnan, Mara Ferreri, and Álvaro Sevilla-Buitrago, 2023, Urban Political Podcast.
Book Review Roundtable – How Cities Can Transform Democracy with Roger Keil, Julie-Anne Boudreau, Ross Beveridge, and Philippe Koch, 2023, Urban Political Podcast.
Book Review Roundtable – Migrants and Machine Politics with Adam Auerbach, Sofie Heintz, and Nicolás Palacios Crisóstomo, 2023, Urban Political Podcast.
Book Review Roundtable – Art and Climate Change with Maja and Rueben Fowkes, Debjani Bhattacharya, and Tatjana Schneider, 2022, Urban Political Podcast.
Book Review Roundtable - Fragments of the City – The Making and Unmaking of Urban Worlds Colin McFarlane with Tatiana Thieme, Kevin Ward, and Theresa Enright, 2022, Urban Political Podcast.
Film-Making as Urban Research, with Sandra Jasper, and Tino Buchholz, 2021, Urban Political Podcast.
Mobilization and advocacy in contexts of massive urbanisation, AbdouMaliq Simone, Dian Tri Irawaty, Mariana Cavalcanti, Steve Ouma Akoth, Dr. Momen ElHusseiny, Kristian Saguin, Sobia Ahmad Kaker, and Taibat Lawanson, 2020, Urban Political Podcast.
Exhibitions
Planetary Urbanisation – Agrifutures Zürich, 2023. Zentrum Architektur Zürich (ZAZ), Switzerland
Does the blue sky lie? Testimonies of Air’s Toxicities, 2020, public art installation as a part India Art Fair, Delhi, India
Mapping Delhi - Arbeit, Stadtraum Und Erinnerung Auf Textil Urbane Räume: 4 Perspektiven, 2021. Zentrum Architektur Zürich (ZAZ), Switzerland
Peripheries & Crossovers: Art As Social Practice, 2021, Hamburg Haus, Germany
Minha Casa Nossa Cidade! (My House My City! ), 2013, Studio X, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Awards, Grants, and Fellowships
DAM Book Award 2024 presented by Frankfurterbuchmesse und Deutsches Architekturmuseum
Swiss National Science Foundation Publication Grant for the book “Researching Otherwise” + Network for City and Landscape (NSL) Grant. 2024
Network for City and Landscape (NSL) colloquium grant + Swiss National Science Foundation Conference Grant for organising the conference Planetary Urbanisation: Agendas for Research and Action. 2023
Swiss National Science Foundation Conference Grant for organising the annual conference of International Network for Urban Research. 2023
Swiss National Science Foundation Conference Grant for organising the first International Symposium on Film, Architecture, and Urban Studies, Zurich. 2022
Society of Architecture Historians Award for Film and Video. 2022
Swiss National Science Foundation Mobility Grant for a year-long stay at the George Simmel Zentrum, Humboldt University Berlin. 2020-2021
Does the Blue Sky Lie? Testimonies of Air’s Toxicities Art Grant. KHOJ International Artists Association. 2021
Swiss Excellence Scholarship for doctoral studies awarded by the Swiss Government. 2017-2020
Peripheries and Crossovers: Art as social Practice Art Grant, KHOJ International Artists Association. 2019-2020
Environmental Film Grant for the documentary film Not Just Roads, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung India Office. 2019-2021
UNLEASH fellow, Denmark for UN Sustainable Development Goals. 2017
Gaurav Chinha Award for outstanding achievements and contributions to
Sardar Patel University. 2009
Prof. Kurla Varkey forum fellow, CEPT University, Ahmedabad. 2009