Ebook: Bombay Brokers

A political party worker who produces crowds for electoral rallies. A “prison specialist” who serves other people’s prison sentences in exchange for a large fee. An engineer who is able to secure otherwise impossible building permits. These and other dealmakers—whose expertise and labor are often considered morally suspect—can be indispensable for navigating everyday life in Bombay, one of the world’s most complex, dynamic, and populous cities. Bombay Brokers collects profiles of thirty-six such “brokers.” Written by anthropologists, artists, city planners, and activists, these character sketches bring into relief the paradox that these brokers’ knowledge and labor are ethically fraught yet essential for Bombay’s functioning. Their centrality reveals the global-scale paradoxes and gaps that these brokers mediate and bridge. In this way, Bombay Brokers prompts a reconsideration of what counts as legitimate and valuable knowledge and labor while offering insight into changing structures of power in Bombay and around the globe.

Contributor(s): Lalitha Kamath, Tobias Baitsch, Prasad Khanolkar, Llerena Guiu Searle, Uday Chandra, Yaffa Truelove, Lalit Vachani, Sangeeta Banerji, Ratoola Kundu, Leilah Vevaina, Aneri Taskar, Ka-Kin Cheuk, Lubaina Rangwala, Ken Kuroda, Tarini Bedi, Anjali Arondekar, David Strohl, Maura Finkelstein, Swaminathan Ramanathan, Edward Simpson, Gautam Pemmaraju, Michael Collins, Rohan Shivkumar, Kathryn Hardy, Sarthak Bagchi, Simon Chauchard, Bhushan Korgaonkar, Ajay Gandhi, Srimati Basu, Atreyee Sen, Sahana Udupa, Annelies Kusters, Prasad Shetty, Rupali Gupte, Amita Bhide, Lisa Mitchell, Rachel Sturman, Daisy Deomampo, Shailaja Paik