In this article, we identify different types of urban nature, more or less « wild » or « artifici... more In this article, we identify different types of urban nature, more or less « wild » or « artificialized », that are produced through the interaction of different actors and the natural environment. Taking cues from Urban Political Ecology, we analyze power relations and environmental imaginaries that result in the production of different urban ecologies and access rights in the case of ponds and lakes in medium-sized Indian cities. Dans cet article, nous identifions differents types de natures urbaines, plus ou moins « sauvages » ou « artificialisees », produites par l’interaction entre differents acteurs et le milieu naturel. Inspire par l’Urban Political Ecology, nous analysons les relations de pouvoir et les representations issues de la production de differentes ecologies et des droits d’acces dans le cas des etangs et des lacs des villes moyennes en Inde.
This special issue of SAMAJ, composed of six empirical papers and this introduction seeks to thro... more This special issue of SAMAJ, composed of six empirical papers and this introduction seeks to throw light on environmental politics in contemporary urban India. Adopting a deliberately Introduction. Environmental Politics in Urban India South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal, 14 | 2016 15
Urban ponds in India have for a long time been used for multiple purposes and have been accessibl... more Urban ponds in India have for a long time been used for multiple purposes and have been accessible to a wide range of social groups; they thus often represent an urban commons. However, recent transformations of urban ponds into infrastructure that serves more limited uses have been accompanied by enclosure and social exclusion. Using an urban political ecology approach that is enriched with the concepts of environmental imaginaries and (un)commoning, this paper examines the ideational foundations and societal mechanisms underpinning the transformation of the pondscape of Navsari, a small city in the state of Gujarat. Based on interviews and field observations, the study found that the small-town elite’s imaginary of the 'modern city' underpinned the shift to the ponds becoming part of Navsari’s drinking water infrastructure; this led to the enclosure of the ponds and thus the ideational and physical separation of residents from these waterbodies and the exclusion of traditi...
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2016
Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern yo... more Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern your use of this document. When citing, please reference the published version. While the University of Birmingham exercises care and attention in making items available there are rare occasions when an item has been uploaded in error or has been deemed to be commercially or otherwise sensitive.
Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 2016
Solid waste management is often perceived as one of the most pressing environmental problems faci... more Solid waste management is often perceived as one of the most pressing environmental problems facing local governments in urban India and elsewhere in the global south. However, solid waste is not simply a managerial problem but is in many ways a highly political issue that involves diverse political actors at different scales. Particularly at the local level, solid waste management can also be a key part of broader political strategies, acting through its unique materiality as an environmental artefact and social relic. In this paper, we use an urban political ecology approach to examine a recent segregation-at-source project in a small town in West Bengal as a lens to understand more general multi-scalar, socio-political urban processes. Drawing primarily upon qualitative field research, the paper shows how diffuse forms of power and different governmentalities were applied between and within state-level government agents, municipal authorities, local waste workers and local commun...
Urban political ecology (UPE) has mainly evolved within the discipline of geography to examine th... more Urban political ecology (UPE) has mainly evolved within the discipline of geography to examine the power relations that produce uneven urban spaces (infrastructures and natures) and unequal access to resources in cities. Its increasingly poststructuralist orientation demands the questioning of received categories and concepts, including those of (neoliberal) governance, government, and of the state. This paper attempts to open this black box by referring to the mostly anthropological literature on everyday governance and the everyday state. We argue that UPE could benefit from ethnographic governance studies to unveil multiple state and non‐state actors that influence the local environment, their diverse rationalities, normative registers, and interactions across scales. This would also to enrich and nuance geographical UPE accounts of neoliberal environmental governance and potentially render the framework more policy relevant.
South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal, 2016
This special issue seeks to throw light on environmental politics in contemporary urban India. He... more This special issue seeks to throw light on environmental politics in contemporary urban India. Herein we adopt a deliberately broad definition of the urban environment to include urban natural resources, environmental amenities and services, and the built environment 1 (Véron 2010). Drawing on Grove (2009:209) we understand urban environmental politics as designating the "struggles over meanings and practices of nature and the city that shape identities that make some forms of urban metabolisms possible while foreclosing others." 2 The collection of papers that form this issue explore environmental politics in a broad range of cities, from the more often discussed metros including Delhi, Bangalore, and Chennai, but also the politics of the smaller centres of Puri and Leh. Utilising diverse entry points and theoretical orientations these cases each contribute to an interlinked set of discussions about the politicisation of India's urban environment. Specifically, they explore the way that the environment is entwined with questions of urban citizenship; the role environmental knowledge(s) plays in urban environmental politics; and the situated character of urban political ecologies. In the Indian context, the endeavour to trace urban environmental politics must take into account the current and recent upheavals in India's cities. It is widely acknowledged that the liberalisation policies of the 1990s have brought about fundamental shifts not only in the Indian economy, but also in the society; especially in India's cities. Shatkin (2014:8) argues that the urban political terrain is undergoing fundamental transformation as well. Bhan (2010) therefore states that the urban has "begun to rise not just demographically
Urban parks in India are often discussed as positive environmental projects, and their creation a... more Urban parks in India are often discussed as positive environmental projects, and their creation appears as unproblematic in public discourse. This paper presents the creation of a municipal park in a small city in Gujarat, India. Using insights from history and architecture, we stress the importance of reading parks as political and to some extent ideological prajects in the larger context of city-making. The political ecology and history of the particular park studied here allow us to problematize the socio-ecological project of urban "beautification" via park creation. The municipal park, established in the centre of a small urban agglomeration after displacing a slum settlement from the site, is -as we argue -an integral part of a local geography of power. As such it expresses several registers of values upheld by local elites and brings into brings into focus highly conflictive social relations. The case study contributes to further developing a situated urban political ecological approach that starts theorising cities from the South. It moreover offers a critical perspective on the understudied urban nature of small towns.
Delhi’s slums face recurrent and disturbing waste water-related problems: overflowing drains, sta... more Delhi’s slums face recurrent and disturbing waste water-related problems: overflowing drains, stagnation of sewerage near or within houses, and subsequent mosquito breeding cause difficulties for everyday life and serious health hazards. The question arises for the affected people as well as administration, how to deal with this tremendous challenge? Governance is defined as ‘exercise of authority, control, management, power of government’ (World Bank, 1992, p. 3) and is used to explain differential outcomes of development interventions. It is widely recognized to be the task of the state, the private sector and civil society conjunctly (UNDP, 1997). Yet, the development debate is suggestive of a rather organized process of governance; of negotiations that lead to the identification of a common goal; and of a rational, technical, and somewhat apolitical management of means of reaching this goal. From this perspective, the waste water situation in Delhi’s slums presents a clear case ...
Twelve years after the discussions on development and institutions at the meeting of the Geograph... more Twelve years after the discussions on development and institutions at the meeting of the Geographischer Arbeitskreis Entwicklungstheorien (GAE 2000) in Zürich, this paper seeks to put institutions back on the research agenda in development geography. The authors explore recent trends in institutional theory and propose a dialectic understanding of "doing institutions" that positions social actors and their everyday practices at the center of institutional analysis. Institutions are the socially (re-)produced rules that enable, constrain and give meaning to the social practices of actors. Actors make institutions; at the same time institutions make actors do certain things. Based on this foundation, three central aspects of the institutional debate are elaborated: Institutional plurality, the legitimacy of institutions, and the role of the state. Two case studies from recent research in South Asia illustrate aspects of the conceptual considerations. The article ends with an outlook on the implications of "doing institutions" for future research in development geography. Zusammenfassung: Zwölf Jahre nachdem das Verhältnis zwischen Entwicklung und Institutionen beim Geographischen Arbeitskreis Entwicklungstheorien (GAE 2000) in Zürich debattiert wurde, ist es Ziel dieses Beitrags, das Thema Institutionen wieder auf die Agenda geographischer Entwicklungsforschung zu setzen. Verschiedene Institutionentheorien werden beleuchtet, um ein dialektisches Verständnis des "Institutionen-Machens" zu entwickeln, in dem soziale Akteure und ihre alltäglichen Praktiken im Zentrum der Analyse stehen. Menschen machen Institutionen und gleichzeitig strukturieren Institutionen menschliches Handeln. Wir definieren Institutionen daher als sozial (re)produzierte Regeln, welche die alltäglichen Praktiken von Akteuren ermöglichen, beschränken und ihnen eine Bedeutung zuweisen. Drei zentrale Aspekte der Institutionendebatte werden aufgeworfen: die Pluralität von institutionellen Regelungen, die Legitimität von Institutionen sowie die Rolle des Staates. Das entwickelte Verständnis von Institutionen und sozialer Praxis wird anhand von zwei Fallstudien aus Südasien illustriert. Der Beitrag schließt mit einem Ausblick auf mögliche zukünftige Forschungsfelder der Geographischen Entwicklungsforschung.
New water uses in the Segura basin: conflicts around gated communities in Murcia
Water International, 2010
The Segura basin in southeast Spain is characterised by massive over-use of its water resources. ... more The Segura basin in southeast Spain is characterised by massive over-use of its water resources. Groundwater resources are being depleted, desertification risk is high and the river ecosystem is near to collapse with merely 4% of its original runoff reaching the mouth. Meanwhile, the water cycle has been deeply technologized to meet the needs of an irrigated agriculture that has been growing since the beginning of the twentieth century. Today, the introduction of new water uses for the irrigation of green spaces in gated communities priding themselves on their first-class golf courses is putting further pressure on water resources. These developments are provoking conflicts between sections of society as well as between levels of state administration. This article investigates why reactions to gated communities are so different. To do so, an approach that highlights actors' differing perceptions of the state of Murcia's waterscape and subsequent attitudes towards water management is used.
Enumerating the Semi-Visible: The Politics of Regularising Delhi's Unauthorised Colonies
Economic and political weekly
While unplanned colonies retain a negative image for most city planners, pragmatic reasons favour... more While unplanned colonies retain a negative image for most city planners, pragmatic reasons favour their regularisation. A large number of Delhi‘s residents live in such unauthorised colonies, most of which are now being regularised. But just how many people, and what changes for them through regularisation? This process does not come without preconditions, spelled out through an emphasis on self-enumeration as well as the mandatory formation of resident welfare associations during the application for legal status. Analysing these procedures, this article argues that greater inclusiveness is offered only to those who adhere to a new meaning of citizenship, focusing on residents’ active and financial participation in development and governance.
(2015): Abwasser und Abfälle - Konflikte in Delhis informellen Siedlungen. Geographische Rundschau 47(12): 26-31
The management of waste water and solid waste remains a substantial challenge of urban governance... more The management of waste water and solid waste remains a substantial challenge of urban governance in India's agglomerations. This challenge is especially pronounced in unplanned settlements, such as slums, where the overall situation of environmental sanitation is highly problematic. Till date, the conflict potential that this situation holds has however been hardly acknowledged in studies on urban water resources. This paper presents the sanitary problems in one slum in Delhi. Various conflicts that pervade the everyday life of slum residents as well as the work experiences of municipal scavengers are discussed in order to expose how the lack of adequate environmental sanitation contributes to the ongoing marginalization of both groups.
(2015): Urban political ecology 'beyond the West': engaging with South Asian urban studies. In: Bryant, R. L. (Ed.): The International Handbook of Political Ecology. Edward Elgar: Cheltenham & Northampton. Pp. 591-603
The integration of the human rights framework in water policy and management is slowly gaining st... more The integration of the human rights framework in water policy and management is slowly gaining strength. What is too often overlooked, though, is the ‘other’ side of the water cycle: wastewater governance. What do human rights have to do with sewage, sludge, and septage? What are the links between human rights and water contamination? The article starts by explaining the concept of wastewater, outlining the impact of water pollution on the realization of human rights, exploring the interface between access to sanitation and wastewater governance, and presenting the relevant human rights framework. It goes on to describe how households, agriculture, and industry contribute to water pollution. Its main contribution lies in demonstrating the value of integrating human rights into wastewater governance and water pollution control to address challenges in the legislative and regulatory frameworks, institutional settings, appropriate technology choices, financing and pricing, and strengthening accountability and transparency.
Uploads
Papers by Anna Zimmer