[CSH-CPR Urban Workshop #190] Differentiated Citizenship: Study of a Slum in Delhi (Rashmibala)
The Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH) & Centre for Policy Research (CPR)
are pleased to invite you to an Urban Workshop N°190
by
Rashmibala
(Ambedkar University)
on
Differentiated Citizenship: Study of a Slum in Delhi
on
Tuesday, 23 December 2025, at 3:45 pm IST onwards
The event will be held online over Zoom
About the talk:
This talk will discuss how citizenship is experienced and negotiated variously within a city, with a specific focus on a slum in East Delhi. Despite their long-term residence and contribution to the city’s industrial economy through informal labour, the basti residents continue to be viewed by the state as marginal populations rather than as full citizens. A close attention to urban development, state policies, and planning practices reveals how graded access to citizenship rights is produced, and persistent deprivation among the urban poor is institutionalized.
The study situates slums as spaces that are simultaneously shaped by exclusion and everyday political negotiation. Drawing on insights from Partha Chatterjee’s idea of the “politics of the governed,” as well as scholarship on inequality, deprivation, and urban informal settlements. The study offers a contrast between how the state conceptualises slums and how the lived experiences and everyday practices construct a self-understanding of slum dwellers as urban citizens. It argues that slums are not temporary or marginal spaces but sites of slow and fragile city-making, where subaltern populations continuously assert their presence and claims to citizenship.
Speaker:
Rashmibala is pursuing PhD in Urban Studies at Ambedkar University, Delhi. She completed her undergraduate and postgraduate studies in History from the University of Delhi. She also holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Library and Information Science. She has worked with various research organizations, including the Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH), IIM, and J-PAL.
This is the one hundred and ninetieth (190) in a series of Urban Workshops planned by the Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH), New Delhi, and Centre for Policy Research (CPR). These workshops seek to provoke public discussion on the city’s development issues and address all its facets including its administration, culture, economy, society, and politics. For further information, please contact: Rama Devi at ramadevi2487@gmail.com, Champaka Rajagopal at champaka@cprindia.org or Partha Mukhopadhyay at partha@cprindia.org.
