Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Contributors to this Volume
- Introduction
- 1 ‘Kalarippayattu is Eighty Percent Mental and Only the Remainder is Physical’: Power, Agency and Self in a South Asian Martial Art
- 2 Empowering Yourself: Sport, Sexuality and Autoeroticism in North Indian Jori Swinging
- 3 Indigenous Polo in Northern Pakistan: Game and Power on the Periphery
- 4 ‘The Moral that can be Safely Drawn from the Hindus' Magnificent Victory’: Cricket, Caste and the Palwankar Brothers
- 5 The Peasants are Revolting: Race, Culture and Ownership in Cricket
- 6 The Social History of the Royal Calcutta Golf Club, 1829–2003
- 7 Warrior Goddess Versus Bipedal Cow: Sport, Space, Performance and Planning in an Indian City
- 8 ‘Nupilal’: Women's War, Football and the History of Modern Manipur
- 9 ‘Playing for the Tibetan People’: Football and History in the High Himalayas
- 10 Community, Identity and Sport: Anglo-Indians in Colonial and Postcolonial India
- Notes
- Bibliography
7 - Warrior Goddess Versus Bipedal Cow: Sport, Space, Performance and Planning in an Indian City
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Contributors to this Volume
- Introduction
- 1 ‘Kalarippayattu is Eighty Percent Mental and Only the Remainder is Physical’: Power, Agency and Self in a South Asian Martial Art
- 2 Empowering Yourself: Sport, Sexuality and Autoeroticism in North Indian Jori Swinging
- 3 Indigenous Polo in Northern Pakistan: Game and Power on the Periphery
- 4 ‘The Moral that can be Safely Drawn from the Hindus' Magnificent Victory’: Cricket, Caste and the Palwankar Brothers
- 5 The Peasants are Revolting: Race, Culture and Ownership in Cricket
- 6 The Social History of the Royal Calcutta Golf Club, 1829–2003
- 7 Warrior Goddess Versus Bipedal Cow: Sport, Space, Performance and Planning in an Indian City
- 8 ‘Nupilal’: Women's War, Football and the History of Modern Manipur
- 9 ‘Playing for the Tibetan People’: Football and History in the High Himalayas
- 10 Community, Identity and Sport: Anglo-Indians in Colonial and Postcolonial India
- Notes
- Bibliography
Summary
Introduction: Of Cities and Spectacles
David Harvey (1985a; 1985b) describes a concentration of artifacts of consumption such as entertainment complexes, convention centers, gentrified neighborhoods or amusement parks as one type of development strategy available to cities under the conditions of late capitalism. Other authors, describing the city as a ‘theme park’ in the late twentieth century, have critiqued the end of public space and the increasing surveillance of citizens in American cities such as Los Angeles, New York, or Minneapolis (Sorkin 1992). More recently, by analyzing gentrification programs, beauty contests and sports events in Atlanta (Ruthesier 1996), Istanbul (Keyder 1999) and Beijing (Brownell 2001) scholars have theorized the relationship between cities and spectacles under conditions of globalization and liberalization. By contrast Orsi (1999) and Srinivas (2001) describe the continuing relevance of religious maps, architectural complexes and sacred processions for presenting alternative topographies and emotional geographies of the city in relation to suburbanization, capital accumulation and diasporic or regional labor movements. This article will attempt to contribute to this debate about cities and spectacles by tracing the embeddedness of specific body cultures, wrestling and martial arts disciplines of considerable antiquity and ‘sportized’ athletics, within the larger space of ‘urban performative genres’. The article suggests that we need to consider an entire range of performances, ranging from festivals and sacred processions to political rallies, sports events and beauty contests, in order to understand the relationship between urban planning, environmental history, and politico-symbolic contests over public space.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Subaltern SportsPolitics and Sport in South Asia, pp. 139 - 172Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2005