Through the Looking Glass: Conceptualising the Theme of Gentrification in Contemporary India

Abstract

Gentrification, at high levels of granularity, reveals psycho-social, socio-economic and socio-political machinery processes that are specific to particular places. This article critically reviews existing literature to comprehend gentrification in the Indian context. Authors argue that the discord between aspirations and class relations gestates urban informality and suggests a new framework that the authors call the Triquetra of Informality. The framework proposes that interplay among urban entrepreneurialism, bourgeois mode of consumption and subaltern mobilisation are the impetus for contemporary urbanism and gentrification in India.