Landscapes Of Urban Memory

The Sacred and the Civic in India’s High-Tech City

Smriti Srinivas

• Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press
• Year: 2001
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9780816691777
• Subtopic: Urban Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Established in the middle of the sixteenth century, Bangalore has today become a center for high-technology research and production, the new "Silicon Valley" of India, with a metropolitan population approaching six million. It is also the site of the very popular annual performance called the "Karaga" dedicated to Draupadi, the polyandrous wife of the heroes of the pan-Indian epic of the Mahabharata. Through her analysis of this performance and its significance for the sense of the civic in Bangalore, Smriti Srinivas shows how constructions of locality and globality emerge from existing cultural milieus and how articulations of the urban are modes of cultural self-invention tied to historical, spatial, somatic, and ritual practices. The book highlights cultural practices embedded in urbanization, and moves beyond economistic arguments about globalization or their reliance on the European polis or the American metropolis as models. Drawing from urban studies, sociology, anthropology, performance studies, religion, and history, Landscapes of Urban Memory greatly expands our understanding of how the civic is constructed.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Note on Transliteration and Translation
• List of Illustrations
• List of Tables
• List of Abbreviations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Civic Rituals in the New "Silicon Valley"
• 2. Models of the Garden City
• 3. The Urban Performative Complex
• 4. The Children of Fire
• 5. The Primal Goddess, the Polyandrous Spouse, and Celibate Warriors
• 6. Cities and Forests
• Conclusion
• Appendix: Survey of Vahnikula Kshatriya Households in Bangalore
• Notes
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index