ABSTRACT
We are witnessing a new, globally circulating imaginary of the South Asian city. India’s embrace of a globalised consumer culture, controversies over outsourcing, the US-led ‘war on terror’, and more recently, the terrorist attacks on Mumbai in 2008 and the box office success of Slumdog Millionaire in 2009 have brought unprecedented attention to South Asian urban landscapes. Through iconic images of call centres, shopping malls and burning buildings, the diverse urban spaces of cities such as Bangalore, New Delhi, Karachi, and Mumbai are now on the worldwide journalistic, policy and popular culture ‘map’. How are we to make sense of this unprecedented attention being directed at urban South Asia? Does it reflect something new in these cities, such as reconfigured urban landscapes and transnational connections, or does it reflect merely momentary prominence in a fickle world imaginary, a chance conjunctural alignment of South Asian urban transformations and Euro-American policy priorities? Is this attention animated by new urban arrangements that urban South Asia might offer as a model to the rest of the world, or is this no more than a passing phase? Whatever their answers, these questions demonstrate the need for a renewed attempt at a scholarly engagement with contemporary urbanism in South Asia; it seems there has never been a greater imperative to critically investigate the complex processes underlying the making of city spaces and everyday urban life in India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.
