Re-thinking protracted displacements: insights from a namasudra refugee camp-site in suburban Calcutta

Abstract

ABSTRACTSouth Asia is a site of myriad forms of dispossession and displacement. I draw on ethnographic research at an East Bengali dalit refugee camp-site in the suburbs of Calcutta, exploring how past displacements have mediated the refugees’ present and how they negotiate continued dislocations engendered by the Indian state. In this article, I pose the following questions: how do mechanisms of prolonged displacement affect lower caste and class groups in the postcolony and how do the displaced groups negotiate it from below? What is the nature of transformation they experience in the patterns of their citizenship/subject position? In exploring conditions of protracted displacement, the article foregrounds the role of strategies of informalisation and grey-spacing through which urban governance functions. While this study identifies dalit refugees to be active agents negotiating myriad forms of dispossession, a point of emphasis remains that they are placed in unequal power relations vis-à-vis the insidious mechanisms of post-colonial governmentality. The continually displaced inhabitants of spaces of ‘permanent-temporariness’ carry on struggles that are discreet, low-key and non-heroic in nature. The paper further highlights that the sense of belonging of such dwellers of peripheral grey-spaces often strikes a discordant note.