Ordinary Violence and Creative Economy

In this chapter, the global creative economy discursive regime is shown to be a spatially-differentiated and power-laden practice. Analyzing the ways in which heritage, creative economy and urban development have become inseparable concerns in India, Delhi and Ahmedabad, it shows that creative economy discourse relies upon and reinforces entrenched colonial capitalist structures of production and rule. Locating the emergence of hope and optimism, the chapter argues that creative economy practices replace, rebrand, and profit from rebranding older modes of governance and their ordinary violence located in class, caste, gender and religious relations. In so doing, creative economy practices aestheticize the profound and normal contradictions of contemporary capitalist development and democracy in India.