The Moving City Scenes from the Delhi Metro and the Social Life of Infrastructure

Reviews

"A poetic narrative that dissolves the perception of Delhi’s Metro as hard infrastructure and embeds it in the life places that are remade, reconnected, and reconceived through this intervention. Most critically, this book challenges us to nuance our imagination of infrastructure as an instrument through which urban cultures are formed and evolve."—Rahul Mehrotra, John T. Dunlop Professor of Housing and Urbanization at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University

"Richly researched and vividly written, The Moving City shows how high technology remakes urban spaces and citizens in the Global South. Rashmi Sadana's ethnography portrays the social life of infrastructure to brilliantly illuminate the ambiguous promise of modernity in a megacity."—Amita Baviskar, author of Uncivil City: Ecology, Equity and the Commons in Delhi

"The Moving City reveals the impact of infrastructure on social life in the first decade of the Delhi metro system. With a careful ethnographic ear, Rashmi Sadana patiently listens to the everyday experiences of riders, and she renders these layered voices in vignettes that richly illuminate the affecting power of gendered stories. The result is a rich and distinctive contribution to the anthropology of contemporary urban space and place."—Steven Feld, Senior Scholar, School for Advanced Research

"The Moving City is a deft account of life on the Delhi Metro, an infrastructure that has radically reshaped Delhi by offering connectivity and a new kind of social space. Through thought-provoking descriptions of connections across scenes and lives, Sadana's ethnography reads lightly yet with insight and conviction."—Sarah Pinto, author of Daughters of Parvati: Women and Madness in Contemporary India