SEED Session: The right to be counted / 23 September 2022 [Virtual Seminar]

Presentation: Sanjeev Routray

Discussants: Ishita Chatterjee, Ash Alam, Eric Gaisie & Adrian Marin Toro

Session Co-chairs: Erich Wolff & Nabanita Islam

This book describes the process of claims-making as an attempt by the political community of the poor to assert its existence and numerical strength, and it demonstrates how this struggle to be counted constitutes the systematic and protracted political process by which the poor claim their substantive entitlements and become entrenched in the city. It illustrates how the quest for documenting the numerical presence and visibility of the poor is linked to tactics and countertactics, including the mediated politics of the intermediaries, documentary and inscriptive struggles, legal battles, and numerous cultural idioms and resistance strategies. Analyzing social, political, and economic relationships alike, this book traces the ways the poor work to gain a foothold in Delhi.

Recorded session