A place in the city: Narratives of ‘emplacement’ in a Delhi resettlement neighbourhood

Abstract

In this article I examine the impassioned yet ambivalent accounts of 'resettlement' recalled by the residents of a neighbourhood settled as part of a wider slum clearance drive during the state of Emergency, a period of autocratic rule declared in India between 1975 and In the context of a sometimes overbearing and at times violent postcolonial state, this article seeks to understand what people do with these accounts. Considering how narrators 'emplot' themselves in relation to their neighbourhood within these stories, I suggest these accounts can be understood as narratives of 'emplacement'. By engaging with both the content of the stories narrated, but also their social and spatial dimensions, narration can be seen as a social act and a spatial practice, as residents seek to emplot, incorporate and exclude others in difficult social relations. By considering the narration of place as a spatial practice, the more subtle and contradictory processes of dwelling in the city are opened up for consideration, how people create spaces to live in and speak from in the maelstrom of city life. Keyword narrative, place, emplacement, neighbourhood, the state, urban ethnography, Delhi, India 'Indira built this place. This is East Delhi -Indira built East Delhi.' (Chauhan Lal) Ask how people came to live in Punarvaspur 1 and it is common for the story to leap ahead a pace or two. Often one is told in approving tones that 'Indira settled

«Det var Norge som var målet.» Polske migranters fortellinger om sted og tilhørighet

“…Gjennom å bruke et relasjonelt stedsbegrep (Massey 2005;Berg 2016) blir det mulig å utforske hvordan opplevelser av makt, ulikhet, inkludering og ekskludering virker inn på opplevelser av tilhørighet til sted. Et sentralt grep i dette kapittelet blir å forstå og analysere hvordan informantene bruker narrativ plassering (Farrer 2010;Read 2012) for å skape sine posisjoner og tilknytninger i den norske konteksten. Videre vil jeg argumentere for at dette er sentral kunnskap i forståelsen av integreringsprosesser.…”

“…Dette gjør jeg rede for under avsnittet «Sted og tilhørighet», som sammen med det påfølgende avsnittet «Narrativer som plasserer» utgjør dette kapittelets teoridel. Dernest kommer empiri og analyse, hvor jeg først gjengir deler av de to narrativene før jeg analyserer de ulike fortellingene ved hjelp av begrepene narrativ plassering (Farrer 2010, Read 2012) og sense of place, som fritt oversatt vil benevnes som stedsfølelse. Kapittelet avsluttes med en kort sluttrefleksjon.…”

From Third‐Class to World‐Class Citizens: Claiming Belonging, Countering Betrayal in the Margins of Ahmedabad

“…The metaphor of being "thrown," for example, "serves to embed the notion of a second-class citizenship, both in the exclusion from urban dwelling and in the abject treatment by the state" (Ramakrishnan 2014, 769). In interviews, my research participants described how either the government (sarkār) or Modi had thrown them into a "jungle" (jangal), a "village" (gām or gāmv) or a "dirty settlement"/"slum" (gandi bastī) (Tarlo 2003;Jervis Read 2012). In their accounts, the Modi-led state manifested itself as an indifferent or even hostile state that "throws away.…”

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