8/17/2014 Politics of archiving: hawkers and pavement dwellers in Calcutta - Springer

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Dialectical Anthropology
September 2011, Volume 35, Issue 3, pp 295-316
Date: 24 Sep 2010
Politics of archiving: hawkers and pavement dwellers in
Calcutta
Abstract
In the last decade, several influential scholars have rigorously worked on the impact of neoliberal globalization
on the poor in the cities of the South. But they have yet to provide a comprehensive account of how and why
some groups in the margins are seen to successfully negotiate with the new modes of governing populations
and increase their visibility as a category, while some groups fail to do so. This paper seeks to bridge this
research gap by comparing a successful and a failed mobilization in Calcutta. In both cases, use of the
footpath has been central. The paper shows how the success of the hawkers in claiming the footpath is tied to
the marginalization of the claims of the pavement dwellers that has (a) homogenized the representation of the
footpath as only used by pedestrians and hawkers and (b) led to the elision of the pavement dwellers as a
governmental category. The paper argues that by arrogating to themselves an archival functionwhich is
conventionally associated with the governmental statesections of population like the hawkers can become
successful in their negotiations with the government.
2 Citations
Within this Article
1. Blocking the gaze
2. Footpath hawking in Calcutta
3. The world of survey
4. Ethnography in a private archive
8/17/2014 Politics of archiving: hawkers and pavement dwellers in Calcutta - Springer
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5. Pavement dwellers
6. A story of forgetting
7. Entrepreneurial poor
8. Conclusion
9. References
10. References
8/17/2014 Politics of archiving: hawkers and pavement dwellers in Calcutta - Springer
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About this Article
Title
Politics of archiving: hawkers and pavement dwellers in Calcutta
Journal
Dialectical Anthropology
Volume 35, Issue 3 , pp 295-316
Cover Date
2011-09-01
DOI
10.1007/s10624-010-9199-1
Print ISSN
0304-4092
8/17/2014 Politics of archiving: hawkers and pavement dwellers in Calcutta - Springer
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10624-010-9199-1 7/8
Online ISSN
1573-0786
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
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Topics
Anthropology
Keywords
Hawkers
Pavement dwellers
Footpath
Democracy
Archive
Informal economy
Governmentaliy
Authors
Ritajyoti Bandyopadhyay
(1)
Author Affiliations
1. School of Social Sciences, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Indian Institute of
Science Campus, Bangalore, India
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