Thursday, August 15, 2013

A Rundown of Field Reflections

5 August 2013

Our second day of fieldwork with the Slum Rehabilitation Society consisted of discussion time in the office, travel, and consecutive visits to Dharavi and Chembur.  In doing so we were able to observe healthcare practice, educational programming, and spatial realities of both rehabilitated (vertical structure) homes and horizontal slum communities.  It has been interesting to go from the headquarters in posh Bandra West to the various communities in which the Slum Rehabilitation Society is involved, as it provides sharp experience of what Shaban (2008) describes as the “spatiality of neoliberalism” (p. 69).  The contrast of spatiality between the rich and the poor is glaringly apparent.  To carry the idea of the spatiality of neoliberalism a bit further, it also seems as though vertical building projects for slum rehabilitation are the product and function of the continuing neoliberal reality.  For, under the current Slum Rehabilitation Scheme with the SRA, rehabilitation is largely for the purpose of freeing up land for private development sui causis as well as for making Mumbai more attractive to global economic players.  The privileging of vertical, “secure” housing also seems to fit into a discursive framework built upon dominant tendencies toward the building up of walls, compartmentalization of space, and prioritization of area.

On the former point, Bannerjee-Guha (2009) notes that since the 1990s the elites of Mumbai have been striving to turn it into “the country’s future international financial and service center” as part of an overall Indian mission to turn Indian cities into world class cities(p. 101).  The slum rehabilitation project, especially since 1995, is a clear example of the urban development favored by such a mission.  Gentrification of poor areas is happening for public and private purposes, and the SRA program only benefits the “established poor”--those who can prove residency prior to 1995.  The result is increasing spatial marginalization and land-area minimization for the poor, and maximization for the wealthy.  As Shaban made clear in his lecture on 7 August 2013, this marginalization concurrently and con-causally happens at various dimensions of space--psychological, social, chronological, and physical.  I cannot help but think of parallels to projects of “urban renewal” and gentrification in Chicago.  The Woodlawn neighborhood is a good example, as it sits on the edge of the gentrification project.  As the University of Chicago and associated industries seek to expand, property values and taxes increase.  Poorer residents are then unable to maintain their residences and have to sell.  The result is economically coerced displacement.  There are obvious differences between the examples, including architectural and policy-wise, but the similarities in mission, ideology, and coercion are remarkable.

On the second point, vertical structure rehabilitation seems to represent well the neoliberal discursive framework.  The attraction is secure housing and often an increase in floor space per home.  Thus, individual families perhaps gain privacy and clearly delineated space, both of which seem to be more fluid in horizontal communities based on limited observation.  Walls are built up, and area is seen as the highest ideal.  Further, the building of vertical structures changes the lifescape and landscape of a community.  “Home” and “work” spaces become clearly delineated, as do spaces for learning, play, waste disposal, and sanitation processes.  While such compartmentalization is not problematic in and of itself, it is built upon dominant ideals of space rather than upon the community capital that already exists.  Further, these realities improve the prospects of the neoliberal city project in that they simultaneously maximize land area for development by putting poor residences on top of each other, put people’s lives behind walls, and hide much of the sensorily available evidence of failed state responses to poverty.


6 August 2013

Our third day of fieldwork involved visiting Marol and Khar (West).  Marol is a community in which builders illegally constructed homes on top of other homes and sold them on the private market, creating a situation in which the poorer residents want rehabilitation while the wealthier residents on top do not.  The necessary concensus, therefore, cannot be reached.  The 60-family community in Khar (West) unanimously wants rehabilitation, but the area is too small and unattractive for a private builder to take up under the SRA.  Both are cases in which the goal of betterment for the poor is unattainable because of failed and faulty public-private response (intentional and unintentional).

Rudolph and Rudolph (1987) write, "The 'state for itself'--as interested actor, reproducing itself--appropriates public powers and resources to partisan and private interest," in discussing the relationship between the state and society in India (p. 14). This seems to be what has happened largely at the municipal level here in Mumbai.  As such it is the local government rather than the nation state, though it might be indicative of the nation state as well.  While talking with employees at the Slum Rehabilitation Project we hear over and over again about how the Slum Rehabilitation Authority is nothing more than a corrupt body that is only looking out for individual profit and the profit of developers.  This is surely a far cry from the original intent of the SRA and Slum Rehabilitation Scheme (even though the Society would claim it was fundamentally flawed from the start).  Yet, based on observing huge disparities in the quality of buildings for rehabilitated slum residents and those for resale, the Society's view makes sense.  There are also multiple "rehabilitation" projects that have been frozen because of developer greed in breaking regulations.  The result is a seemingly haphazard system that takes forever and, though perhaps increasing the floor space of one's dwelling, is entirely unjust upon completion.

So, what was nominally a scheme to help the poor gain secure housing has become a boon for private profit for developers and perhaps for politicians who help them out.   Is this the reality for many housing and other welfare policies and programs in India?  Does the public-private nexus commonly result in wealth accumulation for a few and the same or diminished prospects for the poor?  I hear similar arguments in the United States in discussions about the rising charter school system.  Private companies get special dispensation and privileges from the government.  Individual success stories can be found, but overall the indicators tend to match or do slightly worse than public schools whose resources are dwindling.  The comparison is not perfect, but it hints at a possible flaw in public-private nexus oriented planning.  My larger question for contemplation, then, is if corruption really is the main problem.  Is it rather a larger philosophical and methodological problem of state acting?
 
12 August 2013

Our fieldwork today consisted of traveling to Murgan Chawl, a 60-year old chawl settlement in Santa Cruz West.  Prior to leaving, the staff described Murgan Chawls as a “very backward place” with lots of drug use and prostitution.  In the words of the annual report, “This is one of the most backward areas in the Western Suburb, and conditions of the people are pathetic” (SRS Annual Report 2011-2012).  While the Slum Rehabilitation Society’s tone is quite moralizing, the descriptors themselves are not inapt based upon observation.  The 100-family settlement is in disrepair, there is very little airflow and sunlight, passageways are the smallest I have yet seen, children over the age of 12 have stopped attending school, and men are sitting around high outside.  Standing tall in the middle of the front of the settlement is an SRA building that was started 16 years ago and never finished.  Seeing this reality compels me to reiterate Harvey’s (2007) question: “In whose particular interests is it that the state take a neoliberal stance, and in what ways have those interests used neoliberalism to benefit themselves rather than, as is claimed, everyone, everywhere?” (p. 24).

Anand and Rademacher (2011) problematize the use of Harvey’s conception of neoliberalism in reference to the Slum Rehabilitation Scheme and resulting Slum Rehabilitation Authority in Mumbai by arguing that it has come from a combination of political, private, NGO, and grassroots interests rather than simply that of the corporate sector.  Further, they argue that the program has been “unexpectedly popular” among settlement residents (pp. 1760-1761).  So, the SRA came about in part because of activism by settlement residents, and settlement residents continue to actively favor and participate in the SRA process.  Their argument, then, is that rather than a hegemonic neoliberal project, the SRA is multiply conceived and multiply participated in, including by those whose lives are most affected.

Anand and Rademacher do a good job of marking the failures that have occurred since the institution of the SRA, and they should be lauded for ensuring that the voice of the settlement residents not be left out of any discourse on their own realities, nor their active involvement in processes that have occurred.  Yet, their argument seems to be lacking in its overall critique neoliberalism as a discursive framework through which to view slum rehabilitation.  Murgan Chawl provides a good example.  As the authors suggest, the community actively sought out a builder and anticipated the fruit of participating in the program.  After construction began, though, the builder decided that it would not in the end be as profitable as had been hoped.  According to the SRA guidelines, it was entirely the builder’s prerogative to stop mid-project.  The state favored private enterprise and thus had no regulations on project completion, and the private actor had all the decision-making authority.  When market forces made the endeavor unprofitable, the private actor abruptly ended development.  So, even though the marginalized community had a voice in getting the project started--and conceivably in getting the Scheme authorized--they had no ultimate power in ensuring project completion.  In my mind, this process matches Harvey’s description of neoliberalism aptly and begs his question of favored interests.

The reality seems to be that the only cases in which the wishes of the marginalized are met are those for which corporate profit aligns with a community’s demand for rehabilitation.  In other words, if the geographical and regulatory landscapes will maximize capital accumulation, then the private actor will enter the scene.  In this case the interest of the marginalized is collateral to the interest of the private actor desiring the same outcome.  The result, then, seems to be haphazard rehabilitation in those parts of the city that benefit private actors.  A systematic program of rehabilitation that targets areas of need would align with the idea of “interest of the marginalized,” but the rehabilitation pattern that has emerged indicates something entirely different.  Seeing this pattern in Mumbai makes me wonder about Chicago’s recent redevelopment schemes, in which mixed housing has replaced project housing.  The most famous of these is the Cabrini-Green area.  The former housing project is conveniently nestled between Gold Coast and Lincoln Park.  I am currently suspicious as to whose interests were being served in this redevelopment and in others across the city.

In conclusion, the visit to Murgan Chawl was an eye-opening one.  The visible results of the level of poverty are seen as behavioral issues by the Slum Rehabilitation Society, but they remarkably resemble those of urban poverty in the United States.  What are the larger systemic processes and realities at work here?

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