Neighborhood over nation

Place-based state-making of the middle-class in Mumbai

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4751016
AutoresKakoli Banerjee (0000-0001-9525-9805, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Singapore, autor de correspondencia)
Año2024
Volumen42
Número5-6
Páginas803-823
Fecha de publicación2024-12-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaEnvironment and Planning D Society and Space (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0263-7758 • E-ISSN: 1472-3433
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/02637758241274632
OpenAlexW4401850420
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas49

This article argues that neighborhood-based middle-class civic groups in Mumbai reconfigure and constitute the local state through their everyday operations and social, legal and political interactions with the government. Amid rapid urban transformation, as neighborhoods become more internally differentiated, long-term residents forge ideational territories, rooted in place-based politics to govern their neighborhoods. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, I depict three modes of place-based state-making-détournement, quotidian and activist. I argue that middle-class residents choose and privilege their neighborhood over the nation, in local politics, recalibrating laws and regulations to serve their territorial interests. To that end, I develop a theoretical framework to think about the autonomy of sociospatial communities and their statal implications. By focusing on the 'statization' of everyday life, this article departs from the distinction between state and non-state actors, and instead (i) distinguishes between state and government, (ii) considers the state to be embedded in the local social space where civic actors can enter the state space and steer local governance, and (iii) highlights how different cultural-historical territories produce distinct configurations of the local state, thereby fragmenting the geography of urban governance

Autonomy · Corporate governance · Ethnography · Everyday life · Government (linguistics · Local government · Middle class · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Privilege (computing · Sociology · State (computer science · Urban politics · Anthropology · Law · Public Administration · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies · Urban and Rural Development Challenges · Urban Planning and Governance