SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The chapter focuses upon the privately developed DLF City in Gurgaon (Haryana) in order to explore what contemporary urban processes tell us about new forms of citizenship, the changing nature of the state, and ideas of ‘community’. It develops the notions of ‘post-nationalism’ and ‘moral consumption’ to explore emerging meanings of class and their relationships to processes such as the actions of middle-class residents’ welfare associations. This focus also allows for an investigation of changing relationships between the state and private capital in the wake of the post-1991 ‘liberalization’ policies. The chapter suggests that an investigation of contemporary contexts of urbanism and new consumer cultures provides insights into changing relationships between the categories of ‘the state’, ‘capital’, and ‘the people’. And that the social production of urban spaces allows for an understanding of both the public life of the new city and the refashioning of urban identities.