Unfolding Spatial Movements in the Second-Hand Book Market in Kolkata

This insightful book unfolds the boipara, exploring the acts of thinking and writing about space and place in the context of recent key conversations at the intersections of cultural geographies, mobilities, materialities and heritage studies.

This book reconsiders how we can think about space, place and spatialisation using the book market as a case study. Focusing on everyday lived and imagined experiences within the space, it provides insights into the intricacies, complexities and mobilities involved in the many ways in which temporal, material, structural and sensorial experiences of spaces are inter-implicated. As expression and method, this work aims to be a writing of space (rather than a writing about space) produced through the interleafing of the author’s lived spatial experience of the boipara with the stories, experiences and memories of other regulars who have used and continue to use it, along with the non-human materialities and mobilities that characterise it.

This book is essential reading for a wide international audience, particularly those interested in the evolving discussions on mobility, or writing about space and place, materiality, assemblage theory and heritage spaces in the South Asian context.

Diti Bhattacharya is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research at Griffith University. She is currently working on an Arc Discovery Project titled 'Engaging Outsiders in Sport: Transforming Major Sport Event Legacy Planning through a Co-Creation Approach'. Her area of research expertise includes human and cultural geography, South Asian diaspora, sporting geographies and leisure and tourism geographies. Her doctoral thesis examined spatial movements and material attachments in the second-hand book market of College Street, Calcutta. She combines her research practice working as a research assistant, sessional lecturer and tutor, and as a freelance writer and photographer for various publications. She also enjoys expressing her experiences as migrant woman of colour in the form of short stories, blogs and other creative practice.