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"Cows, Cars and Cycle-Rickshaws: The Politics of Nature on the Streets of Delhi"

"Cows, Cars and Cycle-Rickshaws: The Politics of Nature on the Streets of Delhi"

FromCHIASMOS: The University of Chicago International and Area Studies Multimedia Outreach Source [audio]


"Cows, Cars and Cycle-Rickshaws: The Politics of Nature on the Streets of Delhi"

FromCHIASMOS: The University of Chicago International and Area Studies Multimedia Outreach Source [audio]

ratings:
Length:
79 minutes
Released:
Jan 25, 2008
Format:
Podcast episode

Description

A talk by Amita Baviskar, Associate Professor at the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi University. As an embodied public sphere, city streets are sites for multiple exchanges between differently located people and things. This talk focuses on cows, cars and cycle-rickshaws as they navigate Delhi's roads, and on the people who own, use and seek to control them. All three have been the subject of strenuous efforts at regulation by courts, citizens' groups and traders' associations. Professor Bavkiskar interprets these conflicts as instances of bourgeois environmentalism, the (mainly) middle-class pursuit of urban order, hygiene and safety, and ecological conservation. She argues that collective action in the "public interest" by "citizens" concerned about congestion and the collapse of civic infrastructure constitutes a public that excludes the city's poorer sections. The talk examines state attempts to regulate the traffic between cars, cows and rickshaws, and concludes by arguing that complex interdependencies avert imminent collision and enable "the republic of the street" to survive. From the Program on the Global Environment.
Released:
Jan 25, 2008
Format:
Podcast episode

Titles in the series (100)

The University of Chicago International and Area Studies Multimedia Outreach Source is intended as a resource for students, teachers, and the general public. It makes available recordings of conferences, lectures, and performances sponsored and organized by: the Center for International Studies; the Human Rights Program; the Center for East Asian Studies; the Center for East European and Russian/Eurasian Studies; the Center for Latin American Studies; the Center for Middle Eastern Studies; and the South Asian Language and Area Center. It is funded in part by grants from the U.S. Department of Education.