Comparing cities : the Middle East and South Asia / editors, Kamran Asdar Ali and Martina Rieker ; postscript by Partha Chatterjee.

Format:

Book

Conference/Event

Contributor:

Ali, Kamran Asdar, 1961-

Rieker, Martina.

Conference Name:

Workshop, Comparing Urban Landscapes (2004 : Lahore, Pakistan)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

City and town life--South Asia--Congresses.

City and town life.

City and town life--Middle East--Congresses.

City planning--South Asia--Congresses.

City planning.

City planning--Middle East--Congresses.

Sociology, Rural--South Asia--Congresses.

Sociology, Rural.

Sociology, Rural--Middle East--Congresses.

Middle East.

South Asia.

Genre:

Congresses.

Conference papers and proceedings.

Physical Description:

xix, 349 pages : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2009.

Summary:

These articles seek to highlight the changing social dynamics in Middle Eastern and South Asian cities. The comparative framework builds on a shared history of the colonial encounter, modernity, nationalism and urbanity and is further deepened by the larger framework of Muslim culture that influences social life in both spaces. The various chapters rethink the gendered dimension of public spaces and investigate the relationship between the popular and the political in these regions. They also take into account how larger structural changes in South Asia/ the Middle East have impacted the practices and experiences of people. This focus addresses the lack of social histories that explore urban life-worlds in an era of de-industrialization and major structural changes such as are available for many cities in other regions of the world. It hence provides an interdisciplinary analysis that informs us about how transnational flows of ideas and resources shape certain responses to deprivation and marginality, yet also encourage political passivity and inaction. Raising such questions in a comparative context is essential to refocus research agendas and to inspire new studies. The volume is unique as, for the first time, it puts the field of urban studies within the two regions in a dialogue with each other and with similar efforts across the globe. -- Book jacket.

Contents:

No man's land : a visual essay (Mumbai) / Paromita Vohra

CIty of riffraff : crowds, public space, and new urban sensibilities in war-time Jerusalem, 1917-1921 / Salim Tamari

Men and their 'problems' : notes on contemporary Karachi / Kamran Asdar Ali

The body politic : gender and the practice of power in the city (Bangalore) / Janaki Nair

Decolonizing Diyarbakir : culture, identity and the struggle to appropriate urban space / Zeynep Gambetti

Re-visiting 'everyday life' : the experience of Delhi's media urbanism / Ravi Sundaram

Ghostly Sufis and ornamental shadows : spectral visualities in Karachi's public sphere / Iftikhar Dadi

The state and the production of illegal housing : public practices in Hayy el Sellom, Beirut-Lebanon / Mona Fawaz

Spaces of work/sites of danger : environment and urban landscape in modern Delhi / Awadhendra Sharan

Signs of sovereignty (Chennai) / Mary Hancock

A landscape of recovery : the polysemy of spaces/places in downtown Beirut / Yasmeen Arif

A postscript from Kolkata : an equal right to the city / Partha Chatterjee.

Notes:

"This volume primarily brings together papers from the workshop, Comparing urban landscapes held at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) in April of 2004"--Acknowledgements.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Current Copyright Fee: GBP22.50 0.

ISBN:

9780195474985

0195474988

OCLC:

460942485