ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the built environment and the socio-material infrastructure that enable and/or hinder the idol-crafting practice. Drawing on ethnographic and architectural studies carried out in Kumartuli, this chapter presents a detailed analysis involving drawings, maps, spatial layouts, and photographic materials of workspaces, streets, riverfront embankments, and buildings. The descriptions also comment on how idol-making practices have shaped, adapted, and evolved around these spaces, and how these reflections draw on the typically Bengali socio-spatial construct of a neighbourhood—para. It details the spatial layout of individual workshop-residences that are typical to Kumartuli and discusses how traditional practices and age-old norms of gender, class, and caste govern these cramped yet flexible spaces within an informal setting. Discussions specifically demonstrate how material religious and spatial practices in this idol-crafting neighbourhood have a unique socio-spatial positioning in the urban fabric of Southern cities.
