The ordinariness of struggle and exclusion: a view from across the north–south urban ‘divide’

Abstract

Abstract Comparative literature on subaltern urbanism neglects inequalities among the poor that mimic exclusionary processes to which they have been subjected, what we call ‘scalar imitation’. Using Robinson’s ‘launching’ tactic towards ‘generative comparison’, we identify and explain the evolution of class differentiation within a resettlement colony in Delhi’s periphery, reference ‘glimpses’ of similar processes in literature on subaltern urbanism, and discuss epistemological underpinnings of our analysis. We revise ‘local uniqueness’, which Massey developed early in her career, and adhere to her later topological sensibilities and Foucault’s ‘ascending analysis’. We conclude by highlighting the blurring of worlding and place making processes.