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Slum Evictions through the Lens of Labour

Capture, Value Generation, and Belonging in the Indian City

Bibliographic Data

ID7472015
AuthorsPriti Narayan (0000-0003-4835-4468, Department of Geography University of British Columbia Vancouver BC Canada, corresponding author)
Year2026
Volume58
Issue2
Publication date2026-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAntipode (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0066-4812 • E-ISSN: 1467-8330
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/anti.70083
OpenAlexW4415431863
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited64

Following the lead of labour movements, this article frames slums as labour geographies whose evictions constitute the devaluation of labour in spatial terms. This devaluation occurs in two modes: in the first, through the rendering of workers as “encroachers” or “the urban poor” in policy documents and public discourse, thereby unmooring workers from their geographies of reproduction. In the second, evictions entail the material erasure of the unwaged labour of autoconstruction and other activities that produce and sustain these geographies. Through ethnographic research in Chennai, India, and archival work, “capture” emerges as an embodied practice and emic concept that makes visible value generated through the reproduction of labour power, and the labour sunk into urban lands where access to the realm of the formal is foreclosed. Visibilising this labour of caste‐marginalised working classes is a key way by which discourse on who belongs in the city can be transformed

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Unique citing works1
Citations per year1
Citation span2026 - 2026 (1)
Citation velocitycurrent
Highly citedNo
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