Gated Luxury Condominiums in India: A Socio-Spatial Arena for New Cosmopolitans

Gated Luxury Condominiums in India: A Socio-Spatial Arena for New Cosmopolitans critically examines gated luxury condominiums in contemporary India, exploring their role in shaping elite power and identity within the framework of neoliberalism. It delves into the spatial structure, perception and post-occupancy experience of these enclaves, offering valuable insights into India’s urban development.

This book convincingly elucidates the complex socio-spatial transformations underway in India, inviting readers to understand the depth and breadth of these changes, particularly within the rapidly expanding middle and upper-middle classes. It adopts a robust multi-disciplinary approach, combining methodologies such as spatial ethnography, threshold mapping, qualitative interviews and discourse analysis. Focused on the architectural typology of luxury condominiums, the study serves as a lens for broader social transformations grounded in case studies from Mumbai and Pune. Through a meticulous dissection of the lived experiences of various categories of users - owners, visitors and service staff - the book unveils the complex socio-spatial hierarchies perpetuated within these enclaves. Drawing on theories of cosmopolitanism and postcolonial critiques, the monograph makes a significant scholarly contribution to the disciplines of architecture and the built environment. It fills a gap in the existing literature on modern domesticity in India, offering original research that highlights how architecture is instrumental in socially divisive practices of elite formation.

It will appeal to scholars, researchers and students across disciplines like architecture, landscape design, spatial sociology, urban studies and area studies, focusing on India and South Asia. It is particularly compelling for those interested in the sociocultural dynamics of the middle class, encompassing themes such as domesticity, material culture and spatial politics within the context of Indian condominiums.

Dhara Patel is an architect and postdoctoral researcher at the Chair of Urban and Spatial Sociology, Institute of Sociology, TU Darmstadt, Germany. Her research focuses on the intersection of architecture, urban studies and sociology, with a particular emphasis on housing and socio-spatial dynamics. She holds a PhD in Architecture Building and Planning from the University of Melbourne. Her scholarly pursuits delve into the transformative impacts of globalisation on living spaces, the intricacies of postcolonial urbanism, and the material manifestations of culture in the built environment.