High-life in a high-rise: Governing urban marginality during COVID-19 in Colombo, Sri Lanka

Abstract

This research study discusses urban regeneration projects and the impact of COVID-19 in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The study population constitutes urban watta communities relocated to government owned, high-rise housing projects. This study investigates the state response during COVID-19 and the governance of marginality. The research methodology includes participant observation, a household survey, in-depth interviews, and community based participatory methods carried out between September 2019 to January 2021. The study examines formation and perpetuation of discourses regarding urban working-classes who are perceived as 'urban underclasses'. Despite relocation in high-rise housing projects and attempts to create modern, and upgraded living, the residents in high-rise housing projects constantly experienced marginality. Marginality stemmed from socio-historical, structural factors such as dehumanising discourses, the impact of urban development projects, differential determinants that characterised communities and methods of state control. This study uses difference as an important perspective through which urban subaltern communities and everyday life can be studied. Whereas this study demonstrates that the state exerts excessive control in governing subaltern classes, they were not passive victims resigning themselves to a marginal status. They also exerted agency and engaged in resistance against the state within the post-relocation setting.