Colonial and Post-Colonial Geographies of India - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0761934367 ISBN 13: 9780761934363

Publisher: SAGE Publications Pvt. Ltd, 2006

Synopsis

This collection of original essays by scholars of geography from India, Western Europe and the US provides important insights into the way in which contemporary geographers are engaging with India. The earlier narrow colonial focus that sought to map India as a country of `resources` and ‘peoples’ (tribes and castes) has now been discarded for a broader view located in mainstream intellectual frameworks and informed by a public policy perspective. This volume highlights how contemporary geographers ‘see’ and write on colonial and post-colonial themes such as the state, nation, community, environment and division of labour, while keeping in mind issues of spatiality and territoriality.

About this title

Review

"Colonial and Postcolonial Geographies of India offers a good introduction to and basis for rethinking the ways in which academics theorize and teach the geographies of peoples, places, and regions."
―Economic Geography (Haripriya Rangan Economic Geography 2008-05-29)

This book fills a very significant gap in the literature on the political–economic geography of India through the colonial and contemporary periods.... the panoramic range of ideas and material landscapes explored here makes this book a unique contribution to several fields of study.

(Contributions to Indian Sociology)

The interdisciplinary work throws new light on pressing contemporary issues as well as on issues during the colonial period. It is valuable not only for geographers but also for other social scientists concerned with society in the fast-changing world. (Journal of Social and Economic Development)

This book is a very useful, timely and a much-needed addition to the geographic research on colonial and postcolonial India. It is a must-read for academicians and researchers working on India and development studies. (Asian Journal of Social Sciences)

From the Publisher

This book brings together original contributions by geographers from India, Western Europe and the United States. It provides important insights into the way contemporary geographers engage with broader intellectual traditions, departing from the earlier narrow economic focus.
The volume highlights how geographers `see' and write on topics such as the state, nation, community, environment and division of labour, while keeping in mind issues of place-making, spatiality and territoriality.
Among the diverse issues dealt with are:
- spatial idioms, the use of symbols and colours, and the production of identifiable neighborhoods in the 17th and 18th century in the city of Madras;
- the importance of the concept of home and domestic space for forging nationalist politics in the context of Anglo-Indian women in India before and after 1947;
- the diverse and imaginative ways in which members of the Sangh Parivar have sought to reinvent India as Hindustan;
- how the Kashmir problem cannot be understood except through the lens of geopolitics;
- the complex and nuanced ways in which the global and local are interwoven;
- the unsatisfactory efforts made by some NGOs to deal with the impact of globalisation in Mumbai's slums;
- the emerging regional geographies of industrialization in India with reference to the info-tech sector;
- how the remaking of Delhi was influenced by colonial forms of government;
- issues of urban sustainability and middle class environmentalism.

Edition details

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Pvt. Ltd
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0761934367
• ISBN 13: 9780761934363
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 356
• Editor: Raju Saraswati, M. Satish Kumar, Corbridge Stuart E