IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/soudev/v14y2019i2p223-243.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Negotiating a Better Life: Emerging Trends in the Politics of Ordinary and Poor Muslims in Kolkata

Author

Listed:
  • Anasua Chatterjee

Abstract

Since Independence, Muslim politics in India has mainly been framed through the idiom of identity. While political engagements calling for democratization and increased participation in public life have occasionally occurred, scholarly interest in the ongoing shifts in Muslim political demands is recent and new. Simultaneously, the emerging literature on the politics of patronage and post-patronage networks in democracies of the Global South present anthropologists with new tools for studying the changing contours of the political mobilization of the urban poor. Using ethnographic narratives collected during fieldwork in Park Circus—one of Kolkata’s many Muslim-dominated neighbourhoods—which remains stigmatized and socially and spatially set apart, this article highlights the emerging modes of political engagement among poor and lower middle-class Muslims. I carefully document their efforts to negotiate a perceived ‘better’ life within a fast-changing neoliberal urban landscape that is prejudiced against them. For many ordinary Muslims, this has involved a movement away from the traditional elite-led politics of identity towards more plebeian forms of assertion and activism aimed at eking out a respectable living by working through extant structures of the local administration and networks of power in the neighbourhood.

Suggested Citation

  • Anasua Chatterjee, 2019. "Negotiating a Better Life: Emerging Trends in the Politics of Ordinary and Poor Muslims in Kolkata," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 14(2), pages 223-243, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:soudev:v:14:y:2019:i:2:p:223-243
    DOI: 10.1177/0973174119873207
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0973174119873207
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0973174119873207?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mitchell, Timothy, 1991. "The Limits of the State: Beyond Statist Approaches and their Critics," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 85(1), pages 77-96, March.
    2. Juliette Galonnier, 2015. "The Enclave, The Citadel and the Ghetto: The Threefold Segregation of Upper-Class Muslims in India," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 92-111, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anupama Roy, 2022. "Institutional ‘Presence’ and the Indian State: The Long Narrative," Studies in Indian Politics, , vol. 10(2), pages 185-200, December.
    2. repec:gig:joupla:v:1:y:2009:i:2:p:3-29 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Stephanie L. Mudge & Antoine Vauchez, 2022. "Dependence on Independence. Central bank lawyers and the (un)making of the European economy," Post-Print hal-03913667, HAL.
    4. Fabian Muniesa & Dominique Linhardt, 2009. "At stake with implementation: trials of explicitness in the description of the state," Working Papers halshs-00362285, HAL.
    5. Enrico Gualini & Carola Fricke, 2019. "‘Who governs’ Berlin’s metropolitan region? The strategic-relational construction of metropolitan scale in Berlin–Brandenburg’s economic development policies," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 37(1), pages 59-80, February.
    6. Leela Fernandes, 2004. "The Politics of Forgetting: Class Politics, State Power and the Restructuring of Urban Space in India," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 41(12), pages 2415-2430, November.
    7. Bart Klem, 2012. "In the Eye of the Storm: Sri Lanka's Front-Line Civil Servants in Transition," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 43(3), pages 695-717, May.
    8. Bodhisattva Kar, 2016. "Nomadic capital and speculative tribes: A culture of contracts in the Northeastern Frontier of British India," The Indian Economic & Social History Review, , vol. 53(1), pages 41-67, January.
    9. Ijlal Naqvi, 2018. "Contesting access to power in urban Pakistan," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(6), pages 1242-1256, May.
    10. Hanna Hilbrandt, 2019. "Everyday urbanism and the everyday state: Negotiating habitat in allotment gardens in Berlin," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(2), pages 352-367, February.
    11. R.C. Sudheesh, 2023. "State Life: Land, Welfare and Management of the Landless in Kerala, India," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 54(4), pages 870-891, July.
    12. Deen Sharp, 2022. "Haphazard urbanisation: Urban informality, politics and power in Egypt," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(4), pages 734-749, March.
    13. Cui, Lin & He, Xiaoming, 2017. "Expanding near the home base or venture far? The influence of home country state on the economic distance of foreign direct investments," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 95-107.
    14. Åshild Kolås & Lacin ldil Oztig, 2022. "From towers to walls: Trump’s border wall as entrepreneurial performance," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 40(1), pages 124-142, February.
    15. Pooja Thomas, 2024. "Redesigning the relationship between heritage and city: Insights from the Gandhi Heritage Portal, Ahmedabad," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(6), pages 1111-1126, May.
    16. Ondrej Ditrych, 2019. "Georgia’s frosts: ethnopolitical conflict as assemblage," Asia Europe Journal, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 47-67, March.
    17. Peñaranda Currie, Isabel & Otero-Bahamon, Silvia & Uribe, Simón, 2021. "What is the state made of? Coca, roads, and the materiality of state formation in the frontier," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    18. Susana Neves Alves, 2021. "Everyday states and water infrastructure: Insights from a small secondary city in Africa, Bafatá in Guinea-Bissau," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 39(2), pages 247-264, March.
    19. Poteete, Amy R. & Ribot, Jesse C., 2011. "Repertoires of Domination: Decentralization as Process in Botswana and Senegal," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 439-449, March.
    20. McDoom, Omar Shahabudin, 2012. "Predicting violence within genocides: meso-level evidence from Rwanda," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 48112, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    21. Claudia Gastrow, 2020. "Urban States: The Presidency and Planning in Luanda, Angola," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(2), pages 366-383, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:soudev:v:14:y:2019:i:2:p:223-243. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.