In Search of Home: Citizenship, Law and the Politics of the Poor (South Asia in the Social Sciences, Series Number 15)

In Search of Home explores a new yet less explored space of urban poverty – rehabilitation housing for the displaced poor, which increasingly dots the peripheries of Indian cities. This longitudinal ethnography examines these new liminal zones suspended between a slum and the legal city, producing 'citizenship in-limbo' and relegating the poor to perpetual dependence on the state albeit legal residence. It examines how the flexible governance of such housing produces illegalities, and how state institutions and actors stand to gain through systemic corruption that co-opts urban poor groups, pre-empting radical resistance. This book makes central the gendered nature of such politics, detailing the everyday political work of women, vital to the development of poor neighbourhoods and political struggles for housing. This analysis of rehabilitation housing policies and their implementation, chronicles the myriad strategies employed by the urban poor, from documenting to political performances, in their struggles for a home. "This book examines the politics of the poor focusing on law, citizenship and gender in a new space of urban poverty - rehabilitation housing. Challenging the assumption that illegalities emerge due to lack of legal rights to property, this study reveals how the rehabilitated poor come to experience 'citizenship in limbo', suspended between illegal and legal residence. Examining state practices of allotment and management of rehabilitation housing, it reveals the diverse ways in which illegalities are enabled by the state, allowing for flexible governance and control over housing. It reveals the processes through which systemic corruption is reinforced and urban poor movements de-radicalised and relegated to mobilising for subsidised homes. This work reveals how the practice of such politics is deeply gendered, both in terms of the roles women occupy and the manner in which they are represented in negotiations with the state. It thus provides crucial insights into the nature of political work performed by men and women and how this structures engagements with the state. Rather than to celebrate such politics as democracy or negate it as producing clientelism and dependency, this work argues for an analytical stance that recognises both possibilities of molecular change through normative practices and the impossibility of a radical systemic change"-- Provided by publisher Explores new, yet less explored space of urban poverty - rehabilitation housing that houses the displaced poor and increasingly dots the peripheries of Indian cities and examines the politics of the poor focusing on law, citizenship and gender. It studies how the state produces illegalities, and how state institutions and actors stand to gain