| Publication |
2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
In this article, I examine how social boundaries are drawn and contested by residents in a Delhi resettlement colony, established in 2004 and expanded during the wider slum clearance drive, prior to the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Drawing from life narratives, I explore how residents navigate new social terrains and decide in which situations difference becomes a salient issue. Building on literature that engages with subaltern forms of cosmopolitanism, I argue that openness and conviviality are seen as predominantly urban behaviors, external to that of the colony located on the margins of the city. Residents instead express ambivalent and sometimes contradictory subjectivities in quotidian encounters, and often see social distancing as a necessary tactic. I suggest the narratives offer a nuanced understanding of the multiple constructions of home, community, and belonging amongst the marginalized in and 'beyond' the city.
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