The Politics of the Evicted: Redevelopment, Subjectivity, and Difference in Mumbai's Slum Frontier

Abstract

In recent years cities around the world have undergone mass slum clearances for redevelopment. This study of Mumbai offers an alternative interpretation of urban capital accumulation by investigating the differentiated political subjectivities of displaced slum residents. I argue that Mumbai's redevelopment entails not uniform class-based dispossessions but a process of accumulation by differentiated displacement whereby uneven displacement politics are central to the social production of land markets. Two ethnographic cases reveal that groups negotiate redevelopment in contradictory ways, supporting or contesting projects in varying moments. Redevelopmental subjectivities are influenced at key conjunctures by market-oriented resettlement, ideologies of belonging, desires for improved housing, and participation in non-governmental groups. This articulated assemblage of power-laden practices reflects and reworks class, gender, and ethno-religious relations, profoundly shaping evictees' experience and political engagement. The paper concludes that focusing on differentiated subjectivities may usefully guide both analysis and social justice practice aimed at countering dispossession.

India's Urban Revolution: Geographies of Displacement beyond Gentrification

“…Take, for example, slum demolitions, the largest cause of displacement in contemporary Indian cities, and a process increasingly encompassed within the gentrification rubric, in and beyond India. As many as a million people were displaced from Delhi squatter settlements, and more than a half million displaced from Mumbai, in the 2000s (Doshi, 2013;Ghertner, 2012). India's other large cities have witnessed roughly comparable scales of slum displacement when scaled to their relative population size.…”

Spectacle and Suffering: The Mumbai slum as a worlded space

“…By the 1980s Dharavi was a focus for slum improvement programs that aimed to replace thousands of single-storey hutments with mid-rise apartments (Weinstein, 2014). The programs proved contentious, provoking resistance from civil society organisations such as SPARC and exposing the technical incapacity of the state that lacked accurate census and household registration data (Chatterji, 2005;Doshi, 2013).…”

“…Dharavi operates to combine these itineraries-a space that fulfils people's search for an authentic experience of poverty and development, which is conveniently presented to them, perhaps as with the vignette and Jockin Arputham of the National Slumdwellers Federation. As others have noted, SPARC and National Slumdwellers Federation have refined the art of speaking for the poor, advertising the merits of community organisation and pressing for donor support through devices such as exhibition projects and 'toilet festivals' (Doshi, 2013;McFarlane, 2004). The intention is that Ngozi…”

“…Indeed, the overriding image of Mumbai into the twentyfirst century is of the juxtaposition of riches with poverty. Residents of some of the highest value real estate in the world look over the blue-canopied slums, striking high-rise apartments accommodate a 'new' middle class as familiar with the boutiques and coffee shops of Bandra as those of cities in Europe, the US or Gulf, while families sleep on pavements, under the newly constructed flyovers and are 'resettled' closer to the dumps and polluting industries (Doshi, 2013).…”

State Dominance in Urban Redevelopment

“…Therefore, redevelopment in Mumbai is not an outcome of the spread of gentrification to the Global South. Regarding Mumbai, Doshi (2013) argued that the perspective of accumulation by displacement would be more appropriate than gentrification because urban redevelopment and eviction cause not only class-based displacement but also dispossession along gender and ethno-religious dimensions. Comparing Mumbai and Shanghai, Weinstein and Ren (2009) found an institutional difference in urban redevelopment.…”