Between Elite Hysteria and Subaltern Carnivalesque: the Politics           of Street-Food in the City of Calcutta

Mukhopadhyay, Bhaskar

doi:10.1177/0262728004042762

Cited by 18 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Laws regulating street vending in India date back to the colonial period (Mukhopadhyay, 2004), and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi Act, 1957 (sec. 322) that incorporated the municipality empowered authorities to seize ‘any article whatsoever hawked or exposed for sale on any public street or in any public place’.…”

Section: Street Hawking In Delhimentioning

confidence: 99%

Producing and contesting the formal/informal divide: Regulating street hawking in Delhi, India

Schindler

2013

Urban Studies

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There is a consensus that urban development schemes in India bear little resemblance to the well-thought-out plans of their genesis, and that the boundary between formal/informal is often blurry. I seek to contribute to this literature by showing how, in spite of efforts to implement a regulatory scheme, street hawking in Delhi remains highly informal and in a state of negotiated (im)permanence. I compare two recent conflicts over street hawkers’ use of public space, which demonstrate that power is dispersed across a range of sites and rests with a number of state and non-state actors. I argue that preconceived notions of ‘formality’ and ‘informality’ are of little value in understanding urban processes, and instead it is necessary to understand how the boundary between formal/informal is produced and contested both juridically and through everyday practices of enforcement and evasion/subversion.

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Section: Street Hawking In Delhimentioning

confidence: 99%

Producing and contesting the formal/informal divide: Regulating street hawking in Delhi, India

Schindler

2013

Urban Studies

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“…12See Mukhopadhyay (2004) for a discussion of the authority–defying pleasures public eating offers teenage girls and boys in Kolkata. …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Guardians of the Bourgeois City: Citizenship, Public Space, and Middle–Class Activism in Mumbai

Anjaria

2009

City & Community

104

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This article examines the new phenomenon of "citizens' groups" in contemporary Mumbai, India, whose activities are directed at making the city's public spaces more orderly. Recent scholarship on Mumbai's efforts to become a "global" city has pointed to the removal of poor populations as an instance of neoliberal governmentality as espoused by the Indian state following the "liberalization" of the economy in the early 1990s. However, in this case, it is these civil society organizations, not the state-whose functionaries in fact benefit from a certain element of unruliness on the streets-who are the agents of increased control over populations and of the rationalization of urban space. This article, based on fieldwork-based research, argues that the way in which citizens' groups exclude poor populations from the city is more complex than a straightforward deployment of neoliberalism, and is imbricated with transnational political economic arrangements in uneven and often inconsistent ways. In particular, this article explores how civic activists in these organizations envision their role in the city, and how their activism attempts to reconfigure the nature of citizenship. For instance, civic activists consider themselves to be the stewards of the city's streets and sidewalks, and wage their battles against what they consider unruly hawkers, a corrupt state, and a complacent middle-class public. Moreover, civic activists render street hawkers' political claims illegitimate by speaking on behalf of the abstract "citizen"of Mumbai, thus implying that hawkers' unions speak only on behalf of the vested interests of a single population. In this way, they mobilize a normative notion of civil society in order to exclude the vast segment of city residents who either sell or buy goods on the street. In doing so, the civic activists transform the discourse and practice of politics in the city, so that, ironically, while on one hand using the rhetoric of citizen participation, they in fact undermine the radically heterogeneous forms of democratic political participation the city offers.

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“…Likewise, the guests deemed the ice cream far superior to the cheap but uninspiring popsicles sold by itinerant salesmen in the village. The inclusion of these items echoes Bhaskar Mukhopadhyay's () observation, writing about street‐food cultures in Kolkata, that the city becomes an arena for asserting one's national identity through food practices.…”

Section: The Gr̥h Praveś Ceremony and Feastmentioning

confidence: 85%

Building Beyond the Bypass Road: Urban Migration, Ritual Eating, and the Fate of the Joint Family in Patna, India

Kantor

2018

American Anthropologist

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The anthropology of urban migration in South Asia has emphasized the plight of marginalized people and conflicts over public space. But the precarity of agriculture and inadequacy of basic state services has increasingly compelled rural middle-class families in Bihar, India, to establish a foothold in the country's booming cities. Because they aim to remain located in both the urban and rural spheres, urban migration reconfigures kinship relations so that the joint family household becomes a non-cohabitating entity. Constructing a house in the city depends on rural consumption practices that are distinct from the individual-oriented consumerism of the urban middle class. The gr̥ h praveś, the Hindu house consecration ceremony and feast, legitimizes this transition. The hosts negotiate their hybrid identity as urban migrants through the event's food practices. For instance, adulteration scandals have prompted concerns about provisioning milk in the city. The consumption of milk-based specialty foods during the gr̥ h praveś reflects the family's effort to deploy nourishing, familiar foods that reassert ties to their village community while also signaling aspirations to prosperity and a modern, cosmopolitan identity. Moments of ritual excess extend overflowing hospitality to guests human and divine, providing material proof of the family's unity and ambitions. [urban migration, feasting, house construction, ritual, kinship] RESUMEN La antropología de la migración urbana en Asia meridional ha enfatizado la situación difícil de las personas marginadas y los conflictos sobre el espacio público. Pero la precariedad de la agricultura y lo inadecuado de los servicios estatales básicos han forzado crecientemente a las familias de clase media en Bihar, India, a establecer un punto de apoyo en las ciudades en auge del país. Debido a que tienen como objetivo permanecer ubicados tanto en la esfera urbana como rural, la migración urbana reconfigura las relaciones de parentesco de manera que el hogar familiar conjunto llega a ser una entidad no cohabitante. Construir una casa en la ciudad necesita prácticas de consumo determinadas por los hábitos rurales y son distintos del consumismo orientado al individuo de la clase media urbana. El gr̥ h praveś, la celebración y ceremonia de consagración de la casa hindú, legitima esta transición. Los anfitriones negocian su identidad híbrida como migrantes urbanos a través de las prácticas alimentarias del evento. Por ejemplo, los escándalos de adulteración han suscitado preocupaciones sobre el aprovisionamiento de leche en la ciudad. El consumo de alimentos de especialidad basados en leche durante el gr̥ h praveś refleja el esfuerzo de la familia para utilizar, alimentos familiares, nutritivos que reafirman lazos a su comunidad del poblado mientras también indicando aspiraciones a la prosperidad e identidad moderna, cosmopolita.Momentos de exceso ritual extienden la hospitalidad desbordante a los invitados humanos y divinos, proveyendo

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Between Elite Hysteria and Subaltern Carnivalesque: the Politics of Street-Food in the City of Calcutta

Cited by 18 publications

References 10 publications

Producing and contesting the formal/informal divide: Regulating street hawking in Delhi, India

Producing and contesting the formal/informal divide: Regulating street hawking in Delhi, India

Guardians of the Bourgeois City: Citizenship, Public Space, and Middle–Class Activism in Mumbai

Building Beyond the Bypass Road: Urban Migration, Ritual Eating, and the Fate of the Joint Family in Patna, India

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