What transformative effects does a multimillion-dollar industry have on those who work within it? The Industrial Ephemeral presents the untold stories of the people, politics, and production chains behind architecture, real estate, and construction in areas surrounding New Delhi, India. The personal histories of those in India's large laboring classes are brought to life as Namita Vijay Dharia discusses the aggressive environmental and ecological metamorphosis of the region in the twenty-first century. Urban planning and architecture are messy processes that intertwine migratory pathways, corruption politics, labor struggle, ecological transformations, and technological development. Rampant construction activity produces an atmosphere of ephemerality in urban regions, creating an aesthetic condition that supports industrial political economy. Dharia's brilliant analysis of the sensibilities and experiences of work lends visibility to the struggle of workers in an era of growing urban inequality.

About the Author

Namita Vijay Dharia is an architect and anthropologist specializing in urban South Asia. She is an Assistant Professor of Political Economy at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Note on Anonymity

Introduction: An Asynchronous Time Line
1. Ephemeral Infrastructures
2. The Financial Sublime
3. Drawing Fantasies
4. The Industry of Sound
5. Inside the Pit
6. Concrete Love
Conclusion: Inquilab Zindabad (Long Live Revolution)

Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Reviews

"Namita Vijay Dharia has written a silver mine of suggestions and insights for a new generation of feminist (and possibly Indian) anthropologists about working in a male-dominated and macho world."
— Pacific Affairs

"Dhaira’s writing weaves a compelling narrative of the ephemeral core of the construction industry"
— International Journal of Urban and Regional Research

"Dharia has taken change, non-durability, and even the ephemeral, as the structuring fibres that shape architectural, infrastructural, and design work."

— International Institute of Asian Studies

"This book is different because it gives a field view of architecture enriched with construction workers’ perspectives."
— Landscapes

"A gorgeous, brilliant piece of writing, The Industrial Ephemeral rethinks architecture and design through an ethnographic exploration of the intimate encounters, sights, sounds, and motion of construction sites. In this remarkable book, Namita Vijay Dharia exposes the surprising ephemerality of the built environment and the labor, love, and exploitation involved in creating it."—Christine J. Walley, author of Exit Zero: Family and Class in Postindustrial Chicago

"The Industrial Ephemeral is a compelling chronicle of the fast pace of urban development in India from a seemingly inconspicuous and forgotten angle: the unique ins and outs of the transient construction sites that dot the landscape and soundscape of most large cities in the Global South. This is the kind of book that needs to be written for every large city as an indispensable companion to critical urban theory. It amply demonstrates why Dharia is one of the most farsighted architectural and anthropological analysts of urban worlds at present."—Arturo Escobar, author of Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds

About the Book

About the Author

Table of Contents

Reviews