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Podcast: New Books in Political Science
Episode: Lisa Björkman, "Drama of Democracy: Political Representation in Mumbai" (U Minnesota Press, 2025)
Description: In Drama of Democracy: Political Representation in Mumbai (U Minnesota Press, 2025), Lisa Björkman invites our attention to political form and how they allow us to appreciate the various mediums through which representation is negotiated.
Drawing on a decade of research in the city of Mumbai closely following the movements of corporation election candidates, protesting crowds, political rally organisers, and social workers, the book maps the linguistic, visual, sonic, and semiotic tools used to construct the spectacle of democracy. It asks: how does the figure of the crowd subvert what euromodern conceptions of political representation? How do fil...