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Of Poverty and Plastic: Scavenging and Scrap Trading Entrepreneurs in India's Urban Informal Economy

Author

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  • Gill, Kaveri

    (Programme Evaluation Organisation, Planning Commission)

Abstract

Of Poverty and Plastic applies an interdisciplinary, 'field economics' approach to poverty analysis, using a mix of survey and ethnographic data to challenge received notions of the nature and extent of narrow income poverty and multiple deprivations experienced by those working in the informal waste recovery and plastic recycling economy of Delhi. A detailed analysis of specialization, capital, and value in various segments of this labour-intensive, 'green' informal market is undertaken, with explicit recognition of its wider social and political institutional context, and how it is shaped by unequal interactions with civil society and the state. In particular, the book focuses on the identity and agency of subordinate scheduled caste groups-living literally and metaphorically on the edge of the city-in negotiating 'a decent life' in today's neoliberal environment. The case studies of the ban on recycled polythene bags and the industrial relocation order illustrate the channels through which these actors collectively seek to resist the perceived anti-urban poor status quo, driven by powerful middle class coalitions through legislation or judicial fiat, with varying degrees of success. In doing so, the book exposes the complex, and at times contrary, policy reality binding poverty and deprivation, formal and informal markets, the state and citizenship in contemporary urban India. Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/economicsfinance/9780198060864/toc.html

Suggested Citation

  • Gill, Kaveri, 2009. "Of Poverty and Plastic: Scavenging and Scrap Trading Entrepreneurs in India's Urban Informal Economy," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198060864.
    • Handle: RePEc:oxp:obooks:9780198060864
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    Cited by:

    1. Kant, Vivek & Tapia, Ridhima & Mondal, Saikat, 2022. "Sustainability of mobile IT sector in industrially developing countries by supporting repairability," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(6).
    2. Amrita Chhachhi & Barbara Harriss-White, 2014. "Labour and Petty Production," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 45(5), pages 981-1000, September.
    3. Sneha Sharma, 2023. "GEOGRAPHIES OF EXCLUSION: Reproducing Dispossession and Erasure within a Waste Picker Organization in Mumbai," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(5), pages 861-875, September.
    4. Granados, Maria L. & Rosli, Ainurul & Gotsi, Manto, 2022. "Staying poor: Unpacking the process of barefoot institutional entrepreneurship failure," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 37(3).

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