Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of a key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book investigates and identifies trends that might be valid across distinct socio-cultural and political locations. The juxtaposition of the two countries throws up some startling commonalities as well as considerable differences. In response to the dissatisfaction with the existing state of academic engagement between India and Turkey, the book attempts to initiate cross-cultural conversations within a multidisciplinary framework. Against a potentially fruitful but relatively under-researched and under-theorized backdrop, it seeks to place the Indian subcontinent side by side with the Turkic-speaking world, both past and present, in order to understand one geographical context – history, culture, and social processes – in relation to the other. The book seeks to understand how people claim the space of the city as well as reimagine cityscapes.