Landscapes of Accumulation PDF By:Llerena Guiu Searle Published on 2016-09-20 by University of Chicago Press India s cities have dramatically changed since the country s liberalization in the 1990s. Alongside open-air markets and crumbling apartment blocks, spacious air-conditioned malls now sell Louis Vuitton luggage and Swarovski crystal, new gated communities offer residents pools and indoor gyms, and towering office buildings house international firms. Landscapes of Accumulation is about this violent, sudden, and spectacular urban transformation. Anthropologist Llerena Searle gives an ethnographic account of how land is becoming an international financial resource rather than a site for agricultural or industrial production. Investors, consultants, and government officials are creating a system of clear land titles, well developed and securitized mortgage markets, and practices for financing, constructing, leasing, and maintaining buildings. But Searle shows that there is also cons...