In the Public's Interest: Evictions, Citizenship, and Inequality in Contemporary Delhi Contributor(s): Bhan, Gautam (Author) |
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ISBN: 0820350095 ISBN-13: 9780820350097 Publisher: University of Georgia Press OUR PRICE: $119.74 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: November 2016 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Developing & Emerging Countries - Political Science | Public Policy - City Planning & Urban Development - Social Science | Poverty & Homelessness |
Dewey: 346.540 |
LCCN: 2016010579 |
Series: Geographies of Justice and Social Transformation |
Physical Information: 0.81" H x 6" W x 9" (1.38 lbs) 308 pages |
Themes: - Cultural Region - Indian - Demographic Orientation - Urban |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: This book studies the recent legacy of basti "evictions" in Delhi--mass clearings of some of the city's poorest neighborhoods--as a way to understand how the urban poor are disenfranchised in the name of "public interest" and, in the case of Delhi, by the very courts meant to empower and protect them. Studying bastes, says Gautam Bhan, provokes six clear lines of inquiry applicable to studies of urbanism across the global south. The first is the long-standing debate over urban informality and illegality: the debate's impact on conceptions and practices of urban planning, the production of space, and the regulation of value. The second is a set of debates on "good governance," read through their intersections with ideas of "planned development" within rapidly transforming cities. The third is the political field of urban citizenship and the possibilities of substantive rights and belonging in the city. The fourth is resistance and the ability of a city's subaltern residents to struggle against exclusion. The two remaining inquiries both cut across and unify the first four. One of these is the role of the judiciary and the relationships between law and urbanism in cities of the global south. The other is the relationship between democracy and inequality in the city. What emerges about Delhi in particular are a set of new modes for the reproduction of inequality. When rights are lost, citizenship is unequal and differentiated, the promise of development is refused, and poverty and inequality are reproduced and deepened. The task at hand, says Bhan, is not just to explain evictions but also to listen to what they are telling us about "the city that is as well as the city that can be." |
Contributor Bio(s): Bhan, Gautam: - GAUTAM BHAN is a senior consultant for academics and research at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements. He is the coeditor of the forthcoming Routledge Companion to Planning in the Global South; coauthor (with Kalyani Menon-Sen) of Swept off the Map: Surviving Eviction and Resettlement in Delhi; and coeditor (with Arvind Narrain) of Because I Have a Voice: Queer Politics in India. |