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Mimicry, friction and trans-urban imaginaries: Mumbai taxis/Singapore-style

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  • Tarini Bedi

Abstract

As Mumbai globalizes, the city’s aesthetic, aspirational, and imaginative transformations draw from other commercial centers in Asia. Mumbai’s owner-operated and hereditary kaalipeeli (black and yellow) taxi-trade is being modeled along the lines of Singapore’s fleet-taxi industry. This paper focuses on the political and cultural transformations that accompany this ‘Singapore model’ as manifest in contemporary Mumbai’s taxi-trade. Through a discussion of taxi-modernization in Mumbai it highlights four dimensions of an “Asian mobilities†approach, namely an examination of: the movement of ideas and people; how ideas about moving people around spaces of Asian cities themselves move between different cities; how in turn imaginaries transform the lives of those who labor to move people about; and finally how new kinds of mobilities are constituted through frictions.

Suggested Citation

  • Tarini Bedi, 2016. "Mimicry, friction and trans-urban imaginaries: Mumbai taxis/Singapore-style," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(6), pages 1012-1029, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:48:y:2016:i:6:p:1012-1029
    DOI: 10.1177/0308518X15594803
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