Fluid City, Solid State: Urban Environmental Territory in a State of Emergency, Kathmandu ANNE M. RADEMACHER New York University Abstract This paper addresses the relationship between contemporary territorial processes of statemaking and the fluidity associated with globalizing cities. Focused on the remak- ing of urban environmental space during a period of political emergency in Kath- mandu, the paper examines how state power was sustained and articulated through the production of urban environmental forms, and shows how particular modes of violence and governance were enabled in urban environmental territory. Through an analysis of beautification initiatives undertaken in concert with preparations for a major regional trade conference, I argue that urban environmental productions are critical for understanding the semiotics, multiple scales, and materialities of statemak- ing in twenty-first century cities. [Keywords: environment, state, emergency, Kath- mandu, Nepal]. Introduction: statemaking in urban environments J ust over a month after a state of emergency was declared in Nepal, 1 Kathmandu hosted the eleventh meeting of the South Asia Associa- tion for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), an alliance of national governments that promotes free trade and regional cooperation. 2 In the weeks leading up to the SAARC Conference, citizens of emergency- bound Kathmandu witnessed a massive beautification campaign involv- ing extensive housing demolitions and rapid construction of new urban parks. Urban environmental changes were officially framed as integral to an appropriate welcome for regional leaders, but they also functioned as highly symbolic assertions of national territorial control in a capital city at the center of an increasingly contingent state. The close coin- cidence of the emergency and SAARC regional meetings facilitated an City & Society, Vol. 20, Issue 1, pp. 105–129, ISSN 0893-0465, eISSN 1548-744X. © 2008 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-744X.2008.00008.x.