Community Participation: Panacea or Pipe Dream? The Limits of Collective Action and Participation in New Delhi’s Urban Slums

• In Event: Reimagining Political Participation in South and Southeast Asia

Abstract

Community participation is now a familiar trope in much of the development and governance literature. We see this most often in the context of a rights-based discourse about citizenship, particularly to link the marginalized urban poor to the state not merely as passive receivers of government largesse but as stakeholders attempting to engage in legitimate claim making. This raises questions about the gap between theoretical formulations and everyday realities of collective action and participatory politics. My research seeks to understand the dynamics of collective action, participation, and claim making in urban slum communities. What are the barriers to participation and limits to collective action? What role do NGOs play in facilitating mobilization and action? How does this influence service provision in urban slums? I address these questions based on ethnographic research in four non-notified urban slums in Delhi, particularly in the context of sanitation. My research reveals that, contrary to expectations, empowered communities that act collectively are not necessarily eschewing clientelistic politics. The urban poor are strategic about when to claim their "rights" vs. when to negotiate informal settlements. Willingness of communities to organize for collective action or ability to sustain it varies by issue area, the perceived legitimacy of the facilitating NGO and its ability to create access to the state, as well as other traditional identity cleavages. While rights-based claim making and collective action smooth some service delivery issues, misguided state policies hamper the ability of communities to participate effectively.

Author

• Soundarya Chidambaram, Johns Hopkins University