The spatial aspects of capitalism have been among the most widely discussed
dimensions of globalisation. David Harvey, for example, provides an explanatory
centrality to the ‘spatio-temporal fixes’ of capitalism in response to its pervasive and
recurrent crisis of over-accumulation (Harvey 2003). Capitalism transforms space,
by creating new spaces, by bringing in newer geographies under the control of the
circuits of capital, as well as by deepening capitalist relations in hitherto noncapitalist
spaces within capitalism. This expansion also includes the destruction of
spaces, as globally mobile capital, once creating fixed assets at a particular place
moves on in search of greener pastures, leaving behind a trail of devastation and
dislocation. However, in this restructuring of space, the interaction of capital with
social relations is often much more complex than is typically assumed, even in the
spatial-political economy literature. Capitalist transformation of space is undoubtedly
embedded in the class relations, but beyond that the social relations based on
gender, religion, language, location, race, caste and ethnicity also interact with the
spatial strategies of capital. As Doren Massey argues, the economic space needs to
be conceptualised as ‘‘the product of the diffe

• Saraswati Raju and Santosh Jatrana (eds.): Women Workers in Urban India Cambridge University Press, Delhi, 2016, pp. xxi+338, USD 12