Unequal urban rights: Critical reflections on property and urban citizenship

Abstract

In the fast-growing cities of the Global South, urban forms of citizenship and urban rights are unequally defined and locally negotiated. The aim of this paper is to add the themes of property, landownership and housing as perspectives in the understanding of urban citizenship and to demonstrate how the urban is an arena for the negotiation of rights. This is done by examining urban citizenship and the graduated system of locally negotiated rights, including the right to property, the right to belong to an urban community and the right to urban resources. The research is located geographically in Nepal, where a typology of different classes of citizenship is developed in order to explain how classes of urban citizenship have different rights in the urban. Central to this is an analysis of unequal rights and unequal access to essential urban resources and services. The paper finds that the definition of (new) classes of urban citizenship in Nepal is critically embedded in historical practices and social structures. This demonstrates the relevance of further research into exclusionary practices in urban areas in the rapidly urbanising Global South and adds to the discussion of different types of urban citizenship and unequal rights to the urban space.