Sanjeev Routray

I am a sociologist-anthropologist, critical urbanist, and migration specialist of South Asia and beyond. I am the author of The Right to be Counted: The Urban Poor and The Politics of Resettlement in Delhi (2022; Stanford University Press). In this book, I examine how the poor migrants incrementally stake their claims to a house and life in Delhi. In the context of displacement and dispossession, the book contributes to an analysis of a range of tactics of the poor including the mediated politics of the intermediaries, documentary and inscriptive negotiations, legal struggles, and performance of resistance. I am currently writing my second book tentatively titled The Plumbers of Delhi: Migration, Caste Sociality, and Citizenship in an Occupational Community. This book aims to examine the mechanisms of caste sociality in shaping migration histories, urban labor market outcomes, community formation in cities, and rural-urban citizenship struggles among communities of plumbers in Delhi (India) and the Middle East.