Managing Shifting Spatial Orders: Planning Bombay’s Free Port and Free Zone, 1830s–1980s
Megan Maruschke (SFB 1199)
Publication Date
December 2017
Publisher
Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag
Language
English
Type
Article
Journal
Comparativ
Volume
27
Issue
3-4
Pages
21–40
Synopsis
The free zone features frequently in research on contemporary globalization; the visible exploitation in zones reveals the inequality produced by global economic entanglement. Yet, there is very little historical research on how these practices may be related to elite and state-based globalization projects. Using official reports and correspondence from government ministries, this article examines two free-port and free-zone plans from the 1830s and the 1960s in Bombay, and follows them forward, concluding with the present port situation. These plans were never realized, but they may both serve as a lens through which we can identify the actors who pursue globalization projects, through which they seek to channel connectivity in particular places. Moreover, the concept portals of globalization draws attention to the variety of entangled spaces of what we call the global economy and how these have shifted over time.
Biographical Note
Dr. Megan Maruschke (SFB 1199, Leipzig University, Germany)
Originally from the US, Megan Maruschke came to Leipzig in 2010 to join the Erasmus Mundus MA Programme “Global Studies – A European Perspective”. She also studied in Italy and Poland. In 2012, she started her PhD research at Leipzig within the Research Training Group (GK 1261): “Critical Junctures of Globalization”. She wrote her dissertation on the history of free port and free trade zone practices since the mid-nineteenth century in Mumbai, India. Her current research deals with the way in which the French Revolution challenged concepts of space in the Americas.