ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

Articles by Malini SurSubscribe to Malini Sur

Cultures of Repair

The labour of repair rooted in tutelage and kinship, and the loyalties and discontents that surround repair worlds regulate social order. They recast questions of interdependence and difference in cities. Kolkata’s cargo-cyclists and repair workers who assemble and maintain these old vehicles redeem the city from its disrepairs. Their location and lives are read against the history of capital, contemporary infrastructure building and the logistics of labour. While tutelage fulfils the promise of labour for those who were previously excluded from it, the kinship fostered in Kolkata’s repair worlds continues to keep workers at the margins of capital and profits.

 

Keeping Cities in Motion

As the cities in South Asia transform into global or “world-class” cities, the lives of those who construct, repair, and maintain these cities are changing.

Divided Bodies

There has been a global proliferation in high security barriers, xenophobia and the deep suspicion of Muslim migrants. The overlap of migration, politics, and national security requires us to shift attention to the actual experiences of migrants if we are not to be trapped in the prison of ideologies and legalities. It is especially critical to recognise that the spectrum of everyday mobility, political violence, and territorialities merit to be investigated in one analytic frame.

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