Love & Intimacy in the City

The imaginary of urban life the world over would be incomplete without the promise of intimacy; not just of the sexual kind but also of the everyday up-close encounters that characterise urban living. But how does this imaginary square up with lived experiences. What kind of insights have anthropologists offered into the worlds of love and intimacy in the city, and how has their ethnography shed light on the everyday struggles and challenges of intimate lives and concerns with and about intimacy. This talk will engage with urban anthropology to explore the characterisation of cities as spaces of intimate possibilities ranging from works that engage visibly veiled women, invisible men, embarrassed clients of footpath pornography and sex-clinics, poetic same-sex lovers and my own interlocutors, heterosexual love marrying couples who seek to use the courts to legitimate their marriages.