Ecologies of Urbanism in India

Essays follow rapidly proliferating and resource-intensive Indian urbanism in everyday environments. Case studies on nature conservation in cities, urban housing and slum development, waste management, urban planning, and contestations over the quality of air, water, and sanitation in Delhi and Mumbai illuminate urban ecology per­spectives throughout the twentieth century. The collection highlights how struggles over the environment and one’s quality of life in urban centers are increasingly framed in terms of their future place in a landscape of global sustainability. The text brings historical particularity and ethnographic nuance to questions of urban ecology and offers novel insight into theoretical and practical debates on urbanism and sustainability.

Anne Rademacher is an assistant professor in environmental and metropolitan studies at New York University. K. Sivaramakrishnan is Dinakar Singh Professor of India and South Asian Studies and professor of anthropology, forestry and environmental studies, and international and area studies at Yale University.

“This excellent collection brings a much needed cultural dimension to the recent spate of studies on the crisis of the Indian city. The essays combine close analysis of case studies of various urban environments with a sophisticated approach to problems of habitat, politics, and social life. This book should be of great interest to anthropologists, sociologists, urbanists and Asianists, as well as to student readers at all levels.” —Arjun Appadurai, Goddard Professor of Media, Culture and Communication, New York University