Abstract
Urban informality is a complex phenomenon and recent literature points towards the need to develop a new theoretical framework to analyse and interpret empirical observations. This paper uses Bourdieu’s practice theory to conceptualize informality as a set of practices, analysing two case studies from Jagdamba Camp, Delhi (India), and its surrounding neighbourhoods. The first case centres on practices around a community-managed water supply system and the second on practices around solid waste management. The case studies, based on data collected through qualitative fieldwork in 2015 and 2016, point to multifaceted interactions between formal and informal practices that result in manifestations of in/formal practices in the locality’s everyday politics. The paper argues that informality is not linked to particular people or places in an essentialist way, but dependent on the field in which these actors operate.
Highlights
In June 2015, an NGO started cleaning the garbage dump in Jagdamba Camp, to convert it into a community space so that it could be used as an open classroom for the neighbourhood children
Such a questioning derives its roots from an unblemished understanding of what is objectively good, in this case, a clean open classroom being better than a garbage dump
I argue that the role of fields in which actors operate is as central to informality as the actors themselves or the places they inhabit. This argument is built upon two case studies located in and around Jagdamba Camp, a squatter settlement in Delhi, that look at the practices and everyday politics around water supply and solid waste management
Summary
In June 2015, an NGO started cleaning the garbage dump in Jagdamba Camp, to convert it into a community space so that it could be used as an open classroom for the neighbourhood children. I argue that the role of fields in which actors operate is as central to informality as the actors themselves or the places they inhabit This argument is built upon two case studies located in and around Jagdamba Camp (hereafter JC), a squatter settlement in Delhi, that look at the practices and everyday politics around water supply and solid waste management. JC’s water supply is a community-based system managed by the local community leader(s) and maintained by the state government’s Water Authorityi while solid waste management is officially under the purview of the municipality These interlinked case studies will point to the role of various practices in reshaping the formal service delivery systems, coproducing urban informality and influencing everyday politics. The resulting bias of urban theory marginalizes cities of the developing world and their informality, overshadowing the nuances of informality vis-à-vis its amorphous nature with respect to who practises it and why, its complex power relations beyond state agencies, and social aspects of desirability and avoidance of informal practices
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