My book-length research, Reclaimed Lands: Soil, Speculation and the History of Making Land in Mumbai, excavates the centuries-long history of reclaimed land in Mumbai. Over four chapters, the book traces the transformations integral to making land from the sea starting in the eighteenth century, when shallow seas first became wastelands, then agricultural land, and finally developable urban plots and property. These transformations were not linear processes. They were part of overlapping practices and systems that involved labor, capital, legislative devices, local entrepreneurship, financial innovations, and environmental destruction. In tracing these transformations, the research unravels the often magical way land reclamation is spoken about, with narratives that move quickly from water to dry ground. The book ultimately situates Mumbai’s sinking coasts and its insatiable need for sea-facing land and infrastructure within a longer historical arc spanning centuries of land reclamation. 

The book manuscript is in-progress.