State Policy and the Formation of Dissent: The Urban Poor Struggle and the Resistance in Resettlement Areas (original) (raw)
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The 'slum-free India' slogan that came to the fore in urban policy discourses in the mid-2000s has marked the draconian shift from in-situ slum improvement to slum relocation. Accordingly, the burgeoning literature on urban governance in India has portrayed slum dwellers as victims of such new, neoliberal forms of development. Despite its unique focus on the socio-spatial configuration of poor people's exclusion, it has not paid due attention to their resilience to such processes. Drawing on qualitative data obtained from two slums in Ahmedabad, an India's globalising mega city, this paper examines the manner in which some residents collectively negotiated with the local state either in defence of their housing rights and livelihood or in pursuit of personal gains through manipulating the compensation for relocation. This paper has three objectives. Firstly, it gives an overview of the Slum Networking Project (SNP), which was launched in 1996 through a partnership between aid agencies, local government bodies, NGOs and community-based organisations, as an example of in-situ slum improvement. Secondly, it portrays the process by which the SNP was replaced with some rehabilitation schemes as evident in the provision of dwelling units in multi-storied housing blocks, which are typically located in urban fringes. Thirdly, it presents the diverse strategies that slum dwellers took to claim their right to housing and livelihood. Some residents sought redress with an NGO and the opposition party. Some residents sought co-operation from their neighbours through coercive means and attempted to obtain more compensation than would be available to them by claiming fake figures on their households and neighbourhood. This paper concludes by stressing that the powerful in a slum can mobilise an 'illegitimate' means of survival when they are at risk of eviction and deprived of access to 'legitimate' channels of claim-making such as NGOs.
2002
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Urbanization and fleeing from villages to cities are very high in India. Urban population and economy are mixed one where we meet richest and poorest, people highly accessed to all the facilities and people extremely neglected even for their primary needs, some living in luxuries and others striving for the survival. Urban slums are also in some extent neglected face of urban life. There are around 6.5 crore people living in urban slums in India. If we look at the top ten states having high rate of slum population Maharashtra comes first and Delhi comes at 10 th rank. This research study is based on the works done by an NGO in a slum called Mansarovar Park, Delhi. This paper is dealing with the issues and problems that slum people had undergone in relation to their health and hygiene, education transportation etc and how the NGO could intervene on the issues and problems. This is a qualitative study based on the focused group discussion conducted on 14 th November 2021 at Mansarovar Park Slum, Dilshad Garden, Delhi. There were seven participants in the focused group discussion among them four were representing the slum, then social worker and two researchers. The data recorded and it presented in verbatim form and it is analyzed and presented here thematically. The major findings of the study are that: There were health and hygienic issues which led to malaria and other diseases; people were aware of the need of awakening from the current situation to build up a healthy environment for their survival and this particular NGO played a vital role for the empowerment and sensitization of the people and enhancing people participation in the slum by supportive systems.
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This article critically examines the position of slum-dwellers as citizens and the entitlements available to them within the transforming urban materiality of Delhi. By undertaking a detailed analysis of the media reportage of the recently released 'Housing Stock, Amenities & Assets in Slums-Census 2001', this article argues that there is a systemic and strategic shift in the imagination of 'marginalized' groups-here, namely the slum dwellers-as 'citizens', which significantly limits their 'right to the city'. Within this imagination there is a deliberation to consider the 'marginalized' groups as proactive 'consumers', such that 'amnesia of the experience of poverty', is sustained by situating their position as citizens within the topos of their media consumption practices and trends. This article draws upon decade long ethnographic research in the slums of Govindpuri, which is highlighted as a case study. It attempts to situate the shifting position of the 'marginalized' groups as 'citizens' determined within the particular and peculiar logic of neo-liberalism in developing countries wherein 'cleanliness' not only becomes a state of being but essential to 'being' a part of the State. The article particularly emphasizes on the deliberately 'diminishing' role the State intends to play in the welfare of the 'marginalized'.
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Between 2010 and 2016, over 65,000 slum dwellers were forcibly evicted in Rio de Janeiro. This article compares three cases of anti-eviction resistance over this period. While the three case study communities were all relatively successful in contesting evictions, the outcomes (material, social, political-symbolic) of their mobilizations were different. To understand how and why, we examine and compare the structures and processes of mobilization in these three communities and show how they found different openings and limitations in the changing political opportunity structure. We distinguish three distinct 'moments' or opportunity structures in Rio de Janeiro's urban governance between 2010 and 2016. We term these the City of Exception, the City in Revolt and the City in Crisis. The analytical and theoretical framework of contentious politics helps us draw together and expand on two dominant narratives in scholars' approach to slum evictions: on the one hand a top-down perspective of the 'city against slum dwellers'; on the other a bottom-up perspective of 'slum dwellers against the city'. In this article we test the usefulness of our expanded framework-contentious politics of slums-for understanding the organization and outcomes of community resistance against evictions, and discuss its relevance for research on the politics of slums in the global South. 1 The term 'slum' refers to neighbourhoods of poor-quality housing and should not be used, as it often is, as a derogatory term to label the people living there (Gilbert, 2007). In Brazil, the term 'favela' (slum) is commonly used by these areas' own residents. The struggle over the symbolic and evaluative meaning of the word 'favela' is in itself part of the 'politics of slums'.
The ‘slum-free India’ slogan that came to the fore in urban policy discourses in the mid-2000s has marked the draconian shift from in-situ slum improvement to slum relocation. Accordingly, the burgeoning literature on urban governance in India has portrayed slum dwellers as victims of such neoliberal forms of development. Despite its unique focus on the socio-spatial configuration of poor people’s exclusion, it has paid little attention to their resilience to such processes. Drawing on qualitative data obtained from two slums in Ahmedabad, this paper examines the manner in which some residents collectively negotiated with the local government either in defence of their right to housing or in pursuit of personal gains through manipulating the compensation for relocation. This paper has three objectives. Firstly, it gives an overview of the Slum Networking Prograsmme (SNP), which was implemented from 1996 to the late 2000s through a partnership between aid agencies, local government, non-government organizations (NGOs) and community-based organisations (CBOs), as an example of in-situ slum improvement. Secondly, it portrays the process by which the SNP was replaced with some rehabilitation schemes as evident in the provision of dwelling units in multi-storied housing blocks, which are typically located in urban fringes. Thirdly, it presents the diverse strategies that slum dwellers took to claim their right to housing and livelihood. Some residents sought redress with an NGO and the opposition party. Some residents sought co-operation from their neighbours through coercive means and attempted to obtain more compensation than would be available to them by claiming inappropriate data on their households and neighbourhood. This paper concludes by stressing that the powerful in a slum can mobilise an ‘illegitimate’ means of survival when they are at risk of eviction and deprived of access to ‘legitimate’ channels of claim-making such as NGOs.
Kathmandu School of Law Review
The mega-cities’ displacement often affects all in different ways but it goes economically, politically and socially beyond words to most vulnerable and marginalized groups of the population. Further, impoverishment and risks associated with resettlement can be felt more intensely on and by certain segments of the displaced population. Such projects have multiple and differential impacts, especially on women, men and children. Nonetheless, regardless of differences in caste, class, religion, or region, women everywhere bear the heavy brunt (in terms of tangible and intangible losses) of the forced move a lot more than the male members of their families. This very paper has projected a detailed study of similar courses on women of three major resettlement colonies of Bawana, Bhalsawa and TikriKhurd in Delhi, India.