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- Convenor:
-
Radhika Govinda
(University of Edinburgh)
- Discussants:
-
Patricia Jeffery
(University of Edinburgh)
Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal (CEIAS (Centre for South Asian Studies, Paris))
- Location:
- C408
- Start time:
- 25 July, 2012 at
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
This panel proposes to explore the changing spaces, identities and livelihoods in contemporary Delhi as it is re-imagined, re-engineered and re-presented in complex and contradictory ways in the pursuit of 'world-classness'.
Long Abstract:
This panel proposes to explore the changing spaces, identities and livelihoods in contemporary Delhi as it is re-imagined, re-engineered and re-presented in complex and contradictory ways in the pursuit of 'world-classness'. Given the maddening pace of these changes, it is urgent that the processes and politics behind these be carefully examined. The papers on this panel shall engage with issues such as gender and identity politics in urban villages, labour, livelihood and migration in industrial estates, housing rights in slums and gated communities, preservation of class privilege, environment and monuments at the centre and on the margins of the city.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
The restructuring of Delhi to meet the requirements of its globalisation-in-the making entailed large-scale slum demolitions and an increase of homeless population. This paper examines a mobilization campaign for the right to shelter of the homeless in the context of the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
Paper long abstract:
The socio-spatial restructuring of Delhi to meet the requirements of its globalisation-in-the-making was associated with large-scale slum demolitions and population displacement, which further entailed an increase of the homeless population.
This paper attempts first to assess the size and characteristics of the houseless population in Delhi and its evolution; it further analyses the factors and mechanisms that led to its increase by over 50% during the last decade.
The second section focuses on a mobilization campaign for the right to shelter of the homeless, which was triggered off in the context of "beautification" operations during the preparation for the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
The forced eviction of a group of homeless from a temporary night shelter in winter, its dramatic consequences, and the ensuing protests provide an instance of scaling-up campaign and allows us: 1) to analyse the interplay of actors -a coalition of civil society organisations, the media, and the courts of justice- that contributed to the apparent success of this mobilization; 2) to tackle broader issues regarding the right to the city of homeless people.
Besides, the resettlement conditions of these homeless families in a municipal building demonstrates that creating a dependency on voluntary organisations' assistance does not provide a sustainable solution to homelessness and cannot be a substitute to a proper rehabilitation policy taking into account both housing needs and livelihood opportunities.
This case study further raises challenging questions on the modalities of mobilization by grass-root organisations and spaces for participation and contestation.
Paper short abstract:
This paper proposes an understanding of gender and identity politics in Delhi's historic urban villages, its intersections with state and development politics, migration and urban culture.
Paper long abstract:
This paper proposes an understanding of gender and identity politics in urban renewal in Delhi, its intersections with state and development politics, migration and urban culture, by specifically examining the changing socio-cultural and political dynamics of life and livelihood in the city's historic urban villages. There is some recognition among policy makers and development practitioners regarding the importance of taking into account the voices of women and the perspectives of gender and identity politics as Delhi's urban villages continue to develop. However, these voices and perspectives remain marginal in if not altogether absent from in-depth scholarly works. The research on which this paper is based seeks to address this gap in knowledge production. The paper draws on findings from case studies of two urban villages in South and Central Delhi, emerging from data gathered through participant observation, group discussions, and semi-structured interviews with women from different age brackets and occupational profiles and members of their family, and with select community leaders, government officials and members of development organizations operational in these villages.
Paper short abstract:
The threat of eviction of the Tibetans living in Majnu ka tila and the struggle that arose between the refugees and the Indian authorities offers an interesting insight of the way New Delhi deals with refugees. It shows that precarious settlement goes with precarious status though, as an international issue, Tibetans benefit from a special treatment.
Paper long abstract:
Caught between the 2010 Commonwealth Games and the 2001 Master Plan, the Tibetan colony of Majnu ka tila was threatened in 2006 by the eviction of its inhabitants and the demolition of the buildings built by the refugees. Started a struggle between the refugees, supported by the Chief Minister Sheila Dixit and several politicians, and the courts.
Through the history of the Tibetan settlement in the capital-city and the analysis of these recent developments, this paper will show that the ways Delhi deals with the issue of refugees' settlement echoes the policies India implements regarding refugees in general, Tibetans in particular. India, which is neither part to the Geneva Convention of 1951 nor has it enacted a law on refugees, follows ad hoc policies. They consist in the case of Tibetans in a de facto but not by rights recognition, which render Tibetan status and settlement highly precarious as it depends on the government of India's changing agenda.
Moreover, the struggle led by the refugees and their supports offers an illustration of the contemporary showdown between the executive and the legislative powers as well as the difference made by the Indian authorities between issues which have an international audience and domestic ones: while thousands of slum dwellers have been evicted, Tibetans still live in Majnu ka tila.
Paper short abstract:
The paper examines domestic service in Delhi exploring changing identities with regard to gendered labor markets, livelihood diversification, informal credit, social security and the breaking down of urban spatial segregation through physical proximity in live-in domestic service constellations.
Paper long abstract:
The paper is based on personal interviews with live-in domestic workers and their employers among the so called "gated communities" in neighborhoods of South Delhi such as Defence Colony or Jangpura in contrast to their live-out counterparts working in the same areas.
The paper will explore the livelihood patterns of live-in domestic's, discussing social network induced migration to the city, the regulating factors of the relationship to the employer with regard to family ideology, trust and physical proximity in the context of power, class difference, hierarchy and low status, while at the same time emphasizing the centrality of the formation of informal social security systems, livelihood diversification, access to capital, informal credit and land markets as strategies to counter risk within a situation of extreme socio/economic vulnerability. Additionally the integration of domestic's into gendered informal labor markets is analyzed with reference to the persistence of patriarchal values and the emergence of dual careers within urban middle class families, transforming the existing gendered division of labor into a "total institution" transcending traditional boundaries of public and private, love and paid labor, creating an urban maid/rural madam continuum along with urban based female heads of rural households in the city. The domestic live-in arrangement further disintegrates the within the concept of "world-classiness" desired and fostered socio/economic and political segregation of urban spaces through the creation of an intra household spatial simultaneity supporting the coexistence of communal and individual, traditional and "modern" life styles, changing identities and aspirations among the domestic's in Delhi.
Paper short abstract:
It is in the backdrop of a rapidly neo-liberalising city that the proposed paper attempts to explore the 'new politics' that has emerged due to the entrenched performance of civil society in participatory urban governance models like that of 'Bhagidari' in the Indian megalopolis of Delhi.
Paper long abstract:
More often than not scholarship in the Global South tends to use structuralist lenses for conceptualising the ways in which power is brokered amongst the State and the citizenry in postcolonial urban contexts. Of particular usage is a neo-Gramscian 'Civil vs Political Society' essentialism that predicates a vocabulary of legality as the sole mode of negotiation. Working against such a framework, the present paper attempts to use Deleuzian lenses so as to make sense of what Lefebvre called, the differential spaces of power. The site of study herein is Bhagidari, a participatory urban governance model which has been in vogue in Delhi for over a decade now. In short, the Bhagidari initiative, is one that seeks to institutionalise the participation of Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) through dialogic engagements with officials of various departments like that of Water, Electricity, Roads etc.
Based on empirical data obtained from longitudinal Case Studies, the key points of inquiry are into: (a) the new tensions that arise amongst the political class due to the entrenched performance of 'civil society' in the management of civic affairs and (b) the ways in which one makes sense of the non-economic circuits of power in postcolonial urban contexts. In doing so, the paper contends that such emergent practices put in place a liminal notion of citizenship whereby civil society is seen to operate neither in conjunction nor disjunction with the State. Rather it puts in place fluid spaces of, what I prefer to call as, In Situ Citizenship.