Residents Welfare Associations and the economic territorialization of recyclables collection markets in the Delhi metropolitan area
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24137828 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Aman Luthra (0000-0002-8574-7271, George Washington University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publication date | 2026-08-18 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Urban Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0042-0980 • E-ISSN: 1360-063X |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/00420980261474814 |
| OpenAlex | W7203687253 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 39 |
Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) in urban India act like states, exercising their sovereign power over the territories they control. While a rich literature has provided a deep understanding of the social regulation of neighborhood spaces by RWAs, their role in the economic regulation of informal labor remains underexplored, even though neighborhoods are vibrant sites of a range of informal economic activities that residents depend upon. Drawing on interviews with 33 kabariwalas (informal workers who buy recyclables from households) and 17 dealers (to whom kabariwalas sell those recyclables), and an analysis of balance sheets of 16 RWAs in the Delhi metropolitan area, this article shows how territorial control over neighborhood space allows RWAs to expand and exercise their state-like powers. By virtue of having monopoly rights over the neighborhood space, RWAs regulate: (a) the labor of kabariwalas by requiring permits; (b) the flows of the commodity (recyclable materials) by only allowing permitted kabariwalas to enter the neighborhood; and (c) the firms (dealers) whom some RWAs contract to provide collection services. Increasing competition in this sector because of macroeconomic shifts makes permits and contracts desirable for kabariwalas and dealers, and also allows some RWAs to capture monopoly rents. In making these contributions, this article not only adds to our knowledge about a hitherto underexamined sector of the informal economy of waste in urban India, but it also provides insight into the processes of economic territorialization of neighborhoods as a crucial part of the process of neighborhood state formation.
Commodity · Competition (biology) · Informal sector · Metropolitan area · Monopoly · Social Welfare · State (computer science) · Welfare · Welfare state · Municipal Solid Waste Management · Sustainable Industrial Ecology · Water Governance and Infrastructure
The Birth of Territory
Residential Associations as State Actors
Waste pickers and collectors in Delhi
The urban mine of the Netherlands
Urban Mining's Potential to Relieve China's Coming Resource Crisis
Scale, Market Structure, and the Cost of Refuse Collection
The Problem of Rent
Justice within the new factory gates
Managed Informality
The political economy of state-formation in the Arab Middle East
The territorial fix
Beyond the New Municipalism
Of Market Vendors and Waste Collectors
Still thinking from the south
Why Delhi cannot plan its ‘new towns’
Present at the (Dis)integration
Status of Employment and Occupations of Muslims in India
State power beyond the `territorial trap
Producing and contesting the formal/informal divide
Solid Waste Management and Social Inclusion of Wastepickers
Urban Informality and the State
Efficiency in waste collection markets
Trading Trash in the Transition
Beyond a state-centric approach to urban informality
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |