PhD Oral Exam - Sunjay Mathuria, Geography, Urban and Environmental Studies

When studying for a doctoral degree (PhD), candidates submit a thesis that provides a critical review of the current state of knowledge of the thesis subject as well as the student’s own contributions to the subject. The distinguishing criterion of doctoral graduate research is a significant and original contribution to knowledge.

Once accepted, the candidate presents the thesis orally. This oral exam is open to the public.

Abstract

This dissertation examines the processes of memory-making and spatial storytelling in Belfast City Centre and Lahore – two cities marked by sectarian violence, colonial legacies, and urban transformation. While memorials often provide fixed narratives of the past, this study explores more fluid and affective forms of memory that emerge through spatial storytelling, walking methods, and narrative interventions. Rather than adopting a conventional comparative framework, the research employs juxtaposition to highlight relational resonances between the two cities, tracing how memories of conflict surface in everyday urban life through absences, erasures, and spectral presences, or ‘melancholy survivals’. Using a mixed-methods approach that integrates walking go-along interviews with place-based professionals, analyses of planning texts, and literary narratives, the study interrogates how urban memory is shaped in the aftermaths of the Troubles in Belfast City Centre and Partition in Lahore. It considers how ‘post-conflict’ redevelopment and planning discourses often foreclose memory-making, while alternative modes – such as embodied movement, place-based storytelling, and literary texts – offer dynamic ways of engaging the past. Drawing on critical urban studies and memory studies, this research demonstrates that cities recovering from spatial trauma are shaped not only by material traces but also by narrative and affective interventions. Ultimately, the dissertation challenges fixed conceptions of urban heritage, emphasizing that memory-making in cities is an ongoing, contested, and deeply spatialized process.