Dispossession by appropriation in a global south city: geography, cartography and statutory regime as mediating factors

ABSTRACT

Slum and land have a dialectical relationship. A land that is a slum embodies a filthy and dirty territory that hinders the aesthetic competitiveness of a global city. On the other hand, a slum as a land opens opportunities for multiple uses that promise resurrection of world-class ambition. However, in a situation of tight regulation, informal habitations are often could not be forcefully evicted for this dream to come true. In such an event more conciliatory, yet shrewd, practices are adopted to appropriate land from the informally residing community. A number of tools ply to get the work done, among which geography, cartography, and manipulation of statutory laws are more prominent. Taking Kolkata as a case, I wish to situate ongoing appropriation of central urban land as mediated by these three factors. In Kolkata, while forceful evictions take place on informally occupied land both at the fringe and the central part of the city with vague statutory laws, in the tightly regulated central part of the city, appropriation replaces expropriation, accompanied by a more regular invocation of slum in policy and governmental discourses. The study adds to the dispossession literature by underscoring the role of mediating factors in appropriating the central urban land that could not be coercively expropriated, yet needed for claiming a slot in the world-class city register.

KEYWORDS:

• Kolkata
• land
• slum
• critical cartography
• eviction
• appropriation

Acknowledgments

An earlier version of this article was presented at International Conference on Urbanisation and Regional Sustainability for the Young Scientist Award, held at the University of Calcutta. I thank both the reviewers for constructive comments and suggestions. My heartfelt thanks go to Susmita Mishra, Jadavpur University for reading the drafts and suggesting changes. However, all the errors and omissions, if any, are that of mine.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Swasti Vardhan Mishra http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2499-679X

Notes

1. Bustee here used in a legislative sense.

2. Cha is an acronym for Cities, Heritage, Architecture, at the same time it is also referred to tea (cha in Bengali) in this context. Kolkatans are very fond of tea and its citation hints towards their nostalgia with the city and its neighbourhoods.

3. Term used after Roy (2009).

4. Kolkata has witnessed a surge of apartments and enclaves in recent decade, which has secluded families from one another. City, which boasts of being a gregarious whole, seem to be worried with such a seclusion. In the local parlance the word ‘flat’ is used to denote a nature that is alien to Calcutta/ Kolkata, and also that which promises a materially modern future.