2016 Volume 57 Issue 2 Pages 93-105
This paper examines the possibility of activating the sociopolitical agency of slum dwellers by focusing on the ways in which they have demanded changes to their living environments in contemporary India. The study data are based on fieldwork the author conducted in urban slum areas in Delhi. India has been promoting public‒private partnerships, especially since 2000. At the same time, it has been encouraging sociopolitical participation by slum dwellers. Previous studies focused on particular relationships that have a different purpose, such as those based in civil society, or political society, and on local leaders. The present case studies, however, showed that these relationships were connected and accumulated collectively according to the issues, such as domestic water supply problems, for example. In this situation, the slum dwellers’ community emerged and negotiated with the government through multiple relationships that they could not use individually. In this way, slum dwellers are making arrangements to solve the problems they encounter by making use of multiple relationships. In the era of postdevelopmental states, slum dwellers in India today are attempting to develop their sociopolitical agency through maintaining a diversity of relationships that have different purposes.
