The Making of “World-Class” Delhi: Relations Between Street Hawkers and the New Middle Class

Schindler, Seth

doi:10.1111/anti.12054

Cited by 30 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Embodied labor in other forms of informal work can reveal the contradictions of neoliberal development and its appropriation of social reproduction. Neoliberal strategies transforming the Global South overwhelmingly affect the livelihoods of informal workers, such as street vendors, while at the same time relying on them for social reproduction (Schindler 2014). A social reproduction analysis would build onto Gill’s (2010) ethnography of waste pickers by highlighting these workers’ roles in supporting city life.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenging the Gendered Entrepreneurial Subject: Gender, Development, and the Informal Economy in India

Boeri

2018

Gender & Society

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Challenging the gendered entrepreneurial SubjeCt gender, development, and the informal economy in india Natascia Boeri Bloomfield college, Usa the World Bank's premise that "gender equality is good business" characterizes the current gender and economic development model. Policymakers and development practitioners promote and encourage women's entrepreneurialism from the conviction that increasing women's market-based opportunities is key to lifting women, their families, and communities out of poverty, resulting in the construction of a gendered entrepreneurial subject. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with home-based garment workers in ahmedabad, india, this article questions the portrayal of women informal workers as entrepreneurs. employing a social reproduction framework, i argue that the exploitative characteristics of informal work (i.e., paying for the costs of production and its temporal/spatial characteristic) are falsely interpreted as features of entrepreneurialism (i.e., investment and autonomy). Because work is completed in the worker's own home, work and care become a mutual burden in which woman's sense of providing for her family is impeded by both these roles. a feminist social reproduction framework of embodied labor links women's responsibility for and contribution to family well-being with women's marginalized economic position. examining home-based work through this lens reveals the contradiction of the entrepreneurialism discourse.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenging the Gendered Entrepreneurial Subject: Gender, Development, and the Informal Economy in India

Boeri

2018

Gender & Society

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“…Indian cities exhibit these trends, and they are also being transformed through complex economic, political, social and ecological processes that are contested in a range of spaces and ways by numerous actors (Shatkin ). Powerful local actors typically embrace and work towards grandiose visions of urban transformation, the pursuit of which significantly impacts cities and urban residents as slums are demolished and cityscapes are remade (Benjamin ; Dupont ; Ghertner ; Goldman ; Schindler ). Nevertheless, visions of “world class” cities remain perpetually postponed because they are contested by a bewildering array of actors who employ a range of techniques in places that vary from courts and corporate boardrooms (see Bhan ; Searle ) to everyday politics that unfold on the street (see Chatterjee ; Datta ; Doshi ; Schindler ).…”

Section: Delhi's Urban Metabolismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contesting Urban Metabolism: Struggles Over Waste‐to‐Energy in Delhi, India

2015

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Recent scholarship on the materiality of cities has been criticized by critical urban scholars for being overly descriptive and failing to account for political economy. We argue that through the conceptualization of urban metabolisms advanced by ecological economists and industrial ecologists, materialist and critical perspectives can be mutually enriching. We focus on conflict that has erupted in Delhi, India. Authorities have embraced waste-to-energy incinerators, and wastepickers fear that these changes threaten their access to waste, while middle class residents oppose them because of their deleterious impact on ambient air quality. We narrate the emergence of an unlikely alliance between these groups, whose politics opposes the production of a waste-based commodity frontier within the city. We conclude that the materiality and political economy of cities are co-constituted, and contestations over the (re)configuration of urban metabolisms span these spheres as people struggle to realize situated urban political ecologies. Resumen: Los estudios recientes sobre la materialidad de las ciudades han sido criticados por los investigadores urbanos por ser demasiado descriptivos y no dar cuenta de la economía política. Argumentamos que a través de la conceptualización de los metabolismos urbanos de los economistas ecológicos y los ecólogos industriales, las perspectivas materialista y crítica pueden enriquecerse mutuamente. Nos centramos en el conflicto que ha estallado en Delhi, India. Las autoridades han introducido incineradoras y los recicladores temen que este cambio amenaza su acceso a los residuos, mientras que los residentes de clase media se oponen debido al impacto negativo en la calidad ambiental del aire. Explicamos la aparición de una improbable alianza entre estos grupos, cuya política conjunta se opone a la producción de una nueva mercancía, no quieren que los residuos sean una nueva frontera de la mercantilización dentro de la ciudad. Llegamos a la conclusión de que la materialidad y la economía política de las ciudades son co-constituidas, y las disputas por la (re)configuración de los metabolismos urbanos abarcan ambas esferas al luchar la gente por alcanzar y situar determinadas ecologías políticas urbanas.

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“…Periodic raids conducted by municipal authorities are the primary threat to street hawkers, and in order to limit risk and gain access to urban space they must navigate physical barriers and a plethora of overlapping governance regimes established by non-state actors. Unlike municipal officials who steadfastly resist legally sanctioning of street hawkers’ use of urban space, associations that represent the middle class facilitate street hawkers’ access to urban space in exchange for their adherence to a strict code of conduct regarding their demeanour and appearance, when they can operate, how much they can charge for their products and so on ( Schindler, 2014b ).…”

Section: Informality and Urban India’s Dynamic Social Structurementioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond a state-centric approach to urban informality: Interactions between Delhi’s middle class and the informal service sector

Schindler

2016

Current Sociology

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This article presents original research on relations between middle-class residents and informal-sector workers in Delhi, India. It shows how middle-class associations used their consumption preferences as well as relationships with local authorities to legitimize the work of street hawkers and waste workers. These findings suggest that the toleration of informality can be traced to governance regimes comprised of both state and non-state powerbrokers.

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The Making of “World-Class” Delhi: Relations Between Street Hawkers and the New Middle Class

Cited by 30 publications

References 39 publications

Challenging the Gendered Entrepreneurial Subject: Gender, Development, and the Informal Economy in India

Challenging the Gendered Entrepreneurial Subject: Gender, Development, and the Informal Economy in India

Contesting Urban Metabolism: Struggles Over Waste‐to‐Energy in Delhi, India

Beyond a state-centric approach to urban informality: Interactions between Delhi’s middle class and the informal service sector

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