Engaged Graduate Student Grants
Life in Forgotten Resettlement Sites
Raising awareness about and enabling the political agency of evicted laborers in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
India’s rapid economic growth since the mid-2000s has caused a scramble for land around urban centers. This project focuses on the 30,000 lower-caste Hindu and Muslim laborers in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, who were evicted and resettled to segregated and underserved housing projects in order to make space for sports complexes, hotels and luxury apartments. In collaboration with Beena Jadav, a housing rights activist and founder of Rahethan Adhikar Manch (RAM), Shrey Kapoor is conducting a comparative ethnography that asks how the lived experience of dispossession, resettlement and segregation affects the laborers’ social relations, beliefs and attitudes in relation to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. This team aims to raise awareness about and enable the continued political agency of the evicted.
Topics: Access, Equity and Justice; Law, Government and Policy
The Team
- Graduate student: Shrey Kapoor, development sociology
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Special committee chair:
Fouad Makki, Department of Development Sociology
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
- Community partner: Rahethan Adhikar Manch