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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by UCL Discovery CITY, 2013 VOL. 17, NO. 3, 343–360, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2013.798884 Concrete geographies Assembling global Mumbai through transport infrastructure Andrew Harris Through a focus on the concrete geographies of transport infrastructure in contemporary Mumbai, this paper develops a critical engagement with assemblage theory and the global city. It details how international consultants, contractors, investors and investment, as well as materials, techniques and technologies, have helped sustain and strengthen Mumbai’s relations, associations and flows of global reach. In so doing, it demonstrates how ‘global city-ness’ is generated and articulated through diverse human and non- human components. However, the paper argues this exploration of socio-material assem- blages needs to be combined with an analytical probing of the comparative imaginations, discursive categories, elite coalitions and uneven geographies involved. By drawing on post-structuralist theories of globalisation while emphasising the practices, visions and agendas of specific social groups in Mumbai, the paper aims not only to provoke new empiri- cally grounded dialogue between assemblage thinking and critical urbanism, but also to encourage alternative ways of imagining and planning the global city. Key words: global city, assemblage, Mumbai, transport planning, comparisons Introduction lights, and an array of flyover piers. Some of these bear concrete segments of the rriving at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati new ‘Sahar Elevated Road’ while others Shivaji International airport in are still in steel skeletal form. Beyond the ADecember 2009, the immediate road, large piling rigs marked Bauer and experience of the city outside the main the silhouetted cranes and mixing units of terminal is one of concrete blocks, dust Larsen and Toubro’s casting yard can be and construction.
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