DIFFERENTIATED CITIZENSHIP: The Everyday Politics of the Urban Poor in Kathmandu, Nepal

Abstract

This article explores the everyday politics through which citizenship is negotiated by diverse residents, analysing the case of Bansighat, an informal settlement in Kathmandu, Nepal. It focuses on both the collective tactics of the Nepali women's federation of the urban poor--Nepal Mahila Ekata Samaj--as well as the quotidian practices of diverse residents around water and sanitation. This analysis reveals the variegated politics through which citizenship plays out--reflecting complex interactions between wider processes of urban transformation in Kathmandu, localized socio-spatial conditions of Bansighat and longstanding social relations in Nepali society. The empirical findings help to make more explicit the politics through which some residents are able to capitalize and transform diverse tenure and infrastructural practices into a broader sense of legitimacy or belonging in the city, while simultaneously engendering exclusions for others. This article accordingly reflects on how broader class and ethnic power relations play out through everyday citizenship negotiations, generating differentiated experiences of citizenship for diverse individuals.

The Indifference of Transport: Comparative Research of “Infrastructural Ruins” in the Gauteng City-Region and Greater Maputo

“…The second theoretical impact is to think about the intertwined nature of "infrastructural ruins" and "infrastructural indifference." The empirical contribution expands the burgeoning literature on the disjuncture between the macro-scale of large state investment and lack of use by lower-income households (Amin & Thrift, 2017;Anand et al, 2018;Butcher, 2021;Jirón, 2010).…”

Energy geographies in/of the Anthropocene: Where now?

“…Perhaps this is due to the ‘risky’ nature of sources, carriers and markets of energy and various formal codes and processes that govern them. While a wider political economy and transitions work might be embedded in this formal set‐up, geographers are very aware that informality plays a key role in managing and maintaining everyday life around the world (Butcher, 2021; Kamete, 2013; Roy, 2005; Thieme, 2018). Chatterjee (2004, p. 57) recounts “stories from Indian cities where electric companies, faced with the persistent theft of electricity and the legal difficulty of recognizing illegal squatters as legitimate individual consumers, have negotiated collective rental arrangements with entire squatter settlements” represented and billed through self‐organised collectives or welfare associations.…”

Toward equitable urban water supply and sanitation in Dar es Salaam: The dialectic relationship between policy-driven and everyday practices

“…Giddens' structuration theory that transcends the dualism of structure and agency and asserts their co-constitutive nature provides useful 'sensitising devices' to rethink the relationship between micro and macro perspectives and processes enacted in policy-driven and everyday practices (1984). A situated analysis addresses the limitations of Giddens' a-contextual approach (Baber, 1991;Cleaver, 2007) by emphasising the importance of space and time and the value of exploring the dialectic relationship of agency and structure in particular local and historical settings (Butcher, 2021;Hofmann, 2021;McFarlane and Desai, 2015;Truelove, 2019). This approach can shed light on the multiple axes of inequality in a particular context that affect the provision of and access to services (Prins, 2006).…”