Colonial & Post-Colonial Geographies of India

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.