Property and politics in globalising Bangalore

Bhuvaneswari Raman and Solomon Benjamin, in their paper titled “Illegible Claims, Legal Titles, and the Worlding of Bangalore”, analyse how programmes for digitising land titles are mobilised to reshape power relations within the state and outside, in a struggle to shape property claims in Bangalore

Interacting with the state via ICTs: Nemmadi Kendras in Karnataka

Bhuvaneswari Raman and Zainab Bawa argue that technological interventions made as part of e-governance agendas are not neutral and often complicate government-citizen relationships

Street traders, place and politics: The case of Bangalore.

The significant proportion of the poor in Indian cities who depend on street trade for their livelihoods are increasingly threatened by eviction as a result of urban development programmes implemented since the mid 1990s. Research on urban street traders (in particular) and the urban informal economy (in general) in the developing world has primarily focussed on aspects of its social and economic organisation and have treated street traders as a homogenous group with a uniform ability to claim places. In contrast, this research explores the differential intracity spatial and political processes underpinning street trade, with particular reference to their ability to occupy and defend their trading places, in the city of Bangalore in Karnataka, India. It focuses on the everyday practices and relationships of street traders and explores the role of informal networks that give rise to such differences, through a qualitative research design and a grounded theoretical strategy. It illustrates the ways in which processes specific to a locale affect street traders' ability to occupy and defend places - an aspect that is overlooked in the theories about the politics of street trade. It argues that the territorial embeddedness of street traders is critical in so far as it affects their ability to draw on a range of networks. This thesis makes a contribution to knowledge in two ways: by providing an empirical understanding of the intra-city differences in how street traders occupy and defend places from where they can trade; and at a theoretical level on the role of urban place and the politics of street trade. It concludes with a discussion of the implications of the research findings for policies relating to urban poverty and governance of urban space

The Rhetoric of Transparency and its Reality: Transparent Territories, Opaque Power and Empowerment

This paper examines the purported links between transparency, citizens’ participation and empowerment through a focus on the governance of spatial information in Indian cities. It suggests that the data transparency paradigm need to be critically examined as the effects of data visibility and mobility differ according to the nature of information disclosed and conflicts surrounding it. Both information and technology that supports it visibility are embedded in power relations. Three themes are eloborated in the paper namely, the continued difficulty with retreiving information on land and territory;  the complexities involved in capturing and representing accurately the dynamics of territory use and ownership claims and the emerging governmentality relating to spatial governance that renders power opaque

Contestations over Urban Space and the Politics of the Poor in Indian Cities

International audienc

Contestations over Urban Space and the Politics of the Poor in Indian Cities

International audienc

The Paper Promises of Digitization: Digitizing Spatial Information for Planning in the Chennai Metropolis

International audienceInitiatives for implementing geospatial information databases are being implemented across Indian cities. This essay explores one such initiative implemented by a metropolitan planning agency, the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) in a South Indian metropolis. It shows that, contrary to the promises of digital databases as a toolfor improving information sharing to aid in decision-making and further citizen participation, the state agencies tend to use them primarily for surveillance and storage

Interacting with the State via Information and Communication Technologies: The case of Nemmadi Kendras in Karnataka

International audienc

Illegible Claims, Legal Titles, and the Worlding of Bangalore

International audienceAn ethnographic analysis of the politics of urban land titling in Bangalore, India, highlights an ongoing contest to claim territories, with popular practices confronting elites who are mobilizing new legal and institutional regimes, including “e-Governance”, to globalize that city. We mobilize Bourdieu and Wacquant’s “practice force field approach” to highlight two aspects of this politics viz., (i) the material aspects of land and its rooting in a deeply emotional realm and (ii) the dynamics, which are characterized by fluid politics shaped by flexible alliances, moves and countermoves between competing groups. The two case studies presented point to a consideration of a politics of opacity. A representation of this politics is necessarily discontinuous and rejects coherent logical narratives that de-politicize in order to justify neat “policy prescription”