Torn in Two: Competing Discourses of Globalization and Localization in Indias Informational City of Bangalore
Bangalore city saw unprecedented growth in the 1980s and 90s, in size, population and global importance. This derived chiefly from its positioning as a centre for Information Technology and associated industries. Even as the world watched this amazing growth in wonder, Bangalores own response was typically dichotomous. On the one hand, there was a throwback to a mythicized past, a longing for the pensioners paradise and garden city of old; there was also an aspiration for a neoteric future, a Singapore in Bangalore. This paper studies the phenomenon of Bangalores growth through a kaleidoscopic lens. It asks the question: How has this growth affected and manifested in Bangalores Economy, Society, Politics, Planning and Spatial characteristics? It points that the corporate led development imperative has resulted in, and is partly sustained by, a concomitant growth of a working class, and assorted migrant and poor groups. So Bangalores divided response to growth is in fact an inability of this erstwhile middle class city to accept the plebian democracy that threatens notions of restraint and order. The paper positions itself in the literary terrain of studies on Bangalore, deriving from three streams of literature: Bangalore —specific studies; scholarship on Bangalore as a typical Indian city; and Bangalore in a global context. The consequence of growth is a fragmented and polarized society, partly a legacy of a divided history. In the economic sphere, there the corporate neo-liberal ideology stands in contrast to small local economies of trade and textiles that are still major employers; socially, there is a nouveau elite who prefer to invisibilize the migrant and poor; politics and policy are handmaidens to either group, both of whom influence policy through very different political alliances and processes. The paper leaves us with an open question: What is Bangalores way forward? It solicits your opinion regarding the citys future agenda.
Kalpana Gopalan
Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, India
国际会议
2011 International Conference on Public Administration(2011公共管理国际会议)
成都
英文
320-330
2011-10-18（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）