Locating agency at the urban grassroots: Resistance and reworking in the everyday politics of informal settlements

Abstract

Agency of the urban poor living in informal settlements in Southern cities can manifest in numerous ways in their encounters and negotiations with the formal state and various other actors located in the hierarchy of power relations. A certain form of agency rooted in oppositional consciousness can emerge from their everyday experiences of various forms of structural violence and oppression. Drawing on ethnographic case studies carried out in two informal settlements in Dhaka city, this article examines a range of oppositional acts carried out by the settlements’ residents against various formal and informal actors to understand how grassroots agency is manifested and negotiated in such acts. It utilises Katz’s conceptualisation of resistance and reworking as expressions of agency in interrogating the strategies and practices informal settlement residents use in order to negotiate with and reformulate the conditions and possibilities of their everyday lives. Findings elucidate their capacities and modalities of collective resistance against acts of repression carried out by formal and informal actors as well as against the dominant, vilifying discourses of informal settlements. It further illustrates how they can rework the law to negotiate and claim space within structures of domination. The article concludes by arguing that these acts of resistance and reworking are not just a coping response to constant repression and domination, but a means of claiming a more secure citizenship in the city.