The informal practice of appropriation and social control – experience from a bosti in Dhaka

Abstract

This paper presents the local practices of land allocation and water supply in a bosti (informal settlement) in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It explains the contestation and negotiation in the process of regulation that defines inhabitants’ access to urban provision in bosti settlements. A critical analysis of the local practices reveals an informal sphere of regulations that considers a careful calculation of inhabitants’ individual locations in the prevailing power relations matrix and thus continuously (re)defines their differential access to urban utilities. This paper identifies the informal regulatory sphere as a “closed system” due to the fact that the powerful and relatively well-off dominate in the contestation and negotiation process, thus actively benefiting from it, and there is little scope for others to enter into the process. The very dependency of the inhabitants on these powerful and well-connected inhabitants also limits any possibility of countering this closed regulatory system.