Dr Debapriya Chakrabarti is a Senior Lecturer in Architecture, leading the PRAXIS Atelier. 

Debapriya’s research focuses on the role of infrastructure and its implications on socio-spatial practices. She wrote her doctoral dissertation and a subsequent book on cultural heritage of Kolkata’s Durga Puja festival and its implications on the caste-based idol-making community in Kumartuli, an inner-city neighbourhood of Kolkata (India). Her research expertise includes understanding the human-infrastructure interface, informal urbanism, and sustainable urban transitions, focusing on marginalised communities in the Global South. Debapriya was previously a ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow in Architecture, The University of Manchester. At MSA she is part of the Complexity, Planning and Urbanism [CPU] Lab (A3RO). 

Debapriya currently teaches M Arch Year 2 and vertically in PRAXIS atelier. She runs a Research Methods Workshop module for M Arch Year 1, MLA, and MAAAR. She also teaches BA1 studio. PRAXIS is a decolonial feminist atelier running vertically across BA3 and M Arch courses at MSA aiming to stimulate a positive intersectional feminist debate with a focus on inclusive thinking within the school and beyond.

Debapriya is part of the editorial board as essays and reviews editor of The Journal of Architecture (JoA), RIBA. 

Debapriya has completed a PhD in Architecture at The University of Manchester investigating transformation of idol-crafting practices in Kolkata. She completed her master’s degree in City Planning (MCP) at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur in 2015 with a Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD), Government of India scholarship. Debapriya trained as an architect and completed her Bachelor in Architecture (B.Arch) from Biju Patnaik University of Technology, India in 2012. She worked as an architect in a practice in Kolkata, India before pursuing a Master’s degree in City Planning. 

Previous Employment

ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow at The University of Manchester

Research Associate at The University of Manchester

Research

Projects

Assessing feasibility of Water and Sanitation infrastructure provisioning in peri-urban informal communities: A pilot study to identify opportunities and challenges - Research Accelerator Grant (MMU), 2024-25

Books

CHAKRABARTI, D., 2023. 'Heritage, Crafting Communities and Urban Transformation Durga Puja Festival, Kolkata', Routledge.

Chakrabarti, D., 2023. 'Heritage, Crafting Communities and Urban Transformation: Durga Puja Festival, Kolkata'.

Book Chapters

Chakrabarti, D., 2023. 'Complexities'. In Heritage, Crafting Communities and Urban Transformation, pp. 96-113, Routledge.

Chakrabarti, D., 2023. 'Crafts and practitioners'. In Heritage, Crafting Communities and Urban Transformation, pp. 20-44, Routledge.

Chakrabarti, D., 2023. 'Durga Puja, Kumartuli, and Kolkata'. In Heritage, Crafting Communities and Urban Transformation, pp. 1-19, Routledge.

Chakrabarti, D., 2023. 'Kumartuli's future?'. In Heritage, Crafting Communities and Urban Transformation, pp. 127-140, Routledge.

Chakrabarti, D., 2023. 'Seasonal adaptations and everyday negotiations'. In Heritage, Crafting Communities and Urban Transformation, pp. 69-95, Routledge.

Chakrabarti, D., 2023. 'The emerging and diverging spaces of production'. In Heritage, Crafting Communities and Urban Transformation, pp. 114-126, Routledge.

Chakrabarti, D., 2023. 'The spaces of production'. In Heritage, Crafting Communities and Urban Transformation, pp. 45-68, Routledge.

Chakrabarti, D., 2022. 'Transitioning Infrastructures and Socio-Cultural Practices at the Idol-Making Cluster of Kolkata's Kumartuli'. In Sustainable Development Goals Series, pp. 157-172.

Walley, B., Crowther, A., Serrano, P.Y., Nekkache, A., Cepeda, R., Chakrabarti, D., Boadu, E., 2021. 'The Envirolution Revolution: Raising Awareness of Climate Change Creatively Through Free and Accessible Community Engagement Festivals'. In Addressing the Climate Crisis Local Action in Theory and Practice, pp. 39-48.

Journal Articles

Chakrabarti, D., Iossifova, D., Gasparatos, A., 2026. 'Infrastructural concealment: everyday festival economies and riverine ecologies in Kolkata', International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.

Brown, A., Chakrabarti, B., Mackie, P., Fuller, C., Bhattacharya, R., Bagchi, S., Chakrabarti, D., 2024. 'Contested spaces of exchange: informal cross-border trade on the India-Bangladesh border', Forum for Development Studies, 51 (1), pp. 121-143.

Chakrabarti, D., 2023. 'Urban theory of/from the Global South: a systematic review of issues, challenges, and pathways of decolonization', Frontiers in Sustainable Cities, 5, pp. 1163534-1163534.

Chakrabarti, D., 2022. 'Book review: Mundane Methods: Innovative Ways to Research the Everyday, Helen Holmes, Sarah Marie Hall (Eds.), Manchester University Press, Manchester (2020), v and 287 pp., £24.99 paperback, ISBN: 978-1-5261-3971-9', Emotion, Space and Society, 44.

Chakrabarti, D., 2019. 'Fuzzy Existences and In-betweenness: Place and Practices of the Idol-making Industry of Kolkata1', Edited by Italo Pardo, Giuliana B. Prato and James Rosbrook-Thompson.

Conference Papers

Chakrabarti, D., Sengupta, U., Dusa, S., 2025. 'WASH infrastructure adaptations v. peri-urban aspirations: Complexities of planning, provisioning, and implementing within the lived realities of Global South cities', 23rd Meeting of the AESOP Thematic Group Planning and Complexity (The Dynamics of Panarchy), Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden, 28/11/2025, pp. 34-35.

Chakrabarti, D., Kadyrova, A., Uyarra, E., Flanagan, K., Barrioluengo, M.S., 2023. 'Tracing the role of universities in urban regeneration, experimentation, innovation, and development-a systematic review', in Eu-SPRI Annual Conference.

Chakrabarti, D., Kadyrova, A., Uyarra, E., Flanagan, K., Sanchez Barrioluengo, M., 2022. 'Changing vocabularies in university-led spaces of innovation - a systematic review', 6th International Conference on Public Policy, Toronto, 27/6/2022 - 29/6/2022.

Presentations

Chakrabarti, D., 2026. 'Riverine Ecologies, Material Cycles, and the Concealment of Ecological Crisis Ephemerality of idol-crafting in Kolkata', Susong, China.