Cultures of Commuting

The Mobile Negotiation of Space and Subjectivity on Delhi's Metro

Bibliographic Data

ID5717367
AuthorsMelissa Butcher (0000-0001-5010-9133, The Open University, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume6
Issue2
Pages237-254
Publication date2011-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueMobilities (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1745-0101 • E-ISSN: 1745-011X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17450101.2011.552902
OpenAlexW1996353060
LanguageEN
Citations received51
References cited20

As part of Delhi’s redevelopment, aimed at creating a ‘global city’, new public transport infrastructure is being built. The Metro, in particular, has become iconic of what city authorities and developers refer to as Delhi’s ‘cosmopolitan’ and ‘world city’ status. Authorities have attempted to change commuting practices embedded in the culture of Delhi, a crowded, economically and culturally diverse city, in line with desired new behaviours including an emphasis on cleanliness, order and quiet. To explore these developments this paper presents findings from a qualitative study (conducted in 2009) analysing the urban mobility of a diverse group of young people. Their experiences of the Metro revealed interacting fields of power in the city, between passengers, and between passengers and those in control of the network. These relationships were situated within wider processes of urban reconstruction that intersect with global flows of capital, technology and ideologies of ‘modernity’ and development. The findings also highlighted the contestation of cosmopolitanism: its use to describe a desired urban imagination and its deployment as everyday competencies of negotiation and flexibility designed to manage change, unfamiliarity and inequality

Architectural engineering · Cosmopolitanism · Global city · Modernity · Negotiation · Political science · Politics · Public space · Right to the city · Situated · Social science · Sociology · Computer Science · Engineering · Socioeconomic Development in Asia · Urban and Rural Development Challenges · Urban Planning and Governance