Bombay Brokers

“Lisa Björkman's collection Bombay Brokers offers a brilliantly multivocal account of the many worlds of practical negotiation and embodied expertise that animate urban life in one of India's most dynamic, polarized cities. Just as important, it is a remarkable work of collaborative ethnography that forges a distinctive methodological strategy through which to illuminate the crises and contradictions of contemporary urbanism in Bombay and beyond.” -- Neil Brenner, Urban Theory Lab, University of Chicago
“This remarkable edited collection is a commendable contribution to the study of the links between mediation and intermediation, thus linking a venerable tradition of political anthropology with vivid portraits of the agency of brokers. It brings Bombay to life in ways that will surely inform the comparative study of fixers in other large cities caught in the flux of globalization.” -- Arjun Appadurai, Paulette Goddard Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University
"An unconventional introduction to India's biggest city and an invitation to the joys and challenges of ethnography." -- Andrew J. Nathan * Foreign Affairs *
“While [Bombay Brokers] is nominally about the city of Mumbai, there is little doubt that it will resonate with anyone interested in the story of urban change and continuity all around the world. It is a distinctive contribution to the literature on cities and labour and one that is bound to inspire similar books in years to come.” -- Sneha Annavarapu * International Journal of Urban and Regional Research *
“[Bombay Brokers] is a highly engaging read, as well as a rich and very valuable contribution to the literatures about Mumbai and the concept of brokerage.... The book provides food for thought for debates about the specificity of Southern urbanisms and enriches our conceptual vocabulary for thinking about cities.” -- Pablo Holwitt * Antipode *
“[Bombay Brokers] is a book that, in its combination of sharp-eyed detail and endlessly multiplying perspectives, manages to create a simulacrum of the city itself in all its plurality and vitality. . . . The structure of the book makes it especially useful as a teaching resource.” -- Jonathan Spencer * Journal of Anthropological Research *
“Bombay Brokers is an expert exploration of how life is fashioned in a harshly hierarchical city through the activities of individuals—creative, complex, tenacious individuals who accomplish survival, success or profit, sometimes space to build a community, by brokering deals and mediating conflicts between messy, overflowing institutions.” -- Tania Bhattacharyya * Journal of Asian Studies *
"Bombay Brokers is ideal for teaching. One could easily assign a single chapter, thematic domain, or the whole. The book’s careful interventions on theories of value, politics, urban belonging, and place making will invigorate advanced students as well as professional anthropologists and urban planners, while individual chapters would be ideal for teaching introductory courses on cultural anthropology, urbanism, or South Asia. This imminently readable and teachable volume burgeons with insights and new research avenues for people thinking about and living in cities in South Asia and beyond." -- Andrew McDowell * City & Society *
"It should be read widely. An ambitious project like this is rarely produced, or even attempted, and rarely with this consistent level of craftsmanship and shared vision start to finish. The style and length of the chapters, short and lacking pretense and jargon, make it an ideal complement to more densely theoretical tracts in undergraduate and graduate courses on urban politics and development in South Asia and the global South. The book is also a model of collaborative inquiry." -- Patrick Inglis * Contemporary Sociology *

“Bombay Brokers deserves to be read and engaged with by scholars across anthropology, political science, history, and critical area studies. … [It] vividly captures the art of ethnographic writing and the ends to which it can be mobilized.”

-- Amogh Dhar Sharma * Pacific Affairs *