IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/intare/v19y2016i1p45-59.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

When a participatory slum sanitation project encounters urban informality: The case of the Greater Mumbai Metropolitan Region

Author

Listed:
  • Tara van Dijk

    (PhD, University of Amsterdam)

  • Amita Bhide

    (Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India)

  • Vinay Shivtare

    (Independent Researcher, Mumbai, India)

Abstract

This paper traces what happens to the official process and objectives of a participatory slum sanitation project, the Nirmal Mumbai Metropolitan Region Abhiyan, when non-governmental organizations (NGOs) encounter informalized municipal administration. We do this by describing the implementation phase from the points of view of the actors involved in two cities within the region, analysing them in terms of contraventions and non-enforcement of official objectives and regulations and then relating it back to discussions about both participatory slum sanitation and informality and municipal administration in India. In this case, elected councillors’ territoriality over slums, plus the coordinated actions among them, municipal officials and local contractors undermined the declared physical and social objectives of these programmes. In fact, NGOs quickly began following the rules and practices of informalized municipal administration. These findings are significant for those working on improving basic urban services because where incumbent actors in municipal governance can coordinate to undermine programmes, or alter them to their relative advantage, then participatory development programmes (as currently organized) lack fitness for purpose. This paper also contributes to debates on municipal governance in India by focusing on how political mediators, in this case ward councillors’ bending or breaking of formal regulations and protocols and the municipal officials’ non-enforcement together, informalized the municipal administration of this project.

Suggested Citation

  • Tara van Dijk & Amita Bhide & Vinay Shivtare, 2016. "When a participatory slum sanitation project encounters urban informality: The case of the Greater Mumbai Metropolitan Region," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 19(1), pages 45-59, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:intare:v:19:y:2016:i:1:p:45-59
    DOI: 10.1177/2233865916628701
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2233865916628701
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/2233865916628701?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Colin McFarlane, 2012. "Rethinking Informality: Politics, Crisis, and the City," Planning Theory & Practice, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(1), pages 89-108.
    2. Soumyadip Chattopadhyay, 2015. "Contesting inclusiveness: Policies, politics and processes of participatory urban governance in Indian cities," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 15(1), pages 22-36, January.
    3. Colin McFarlane & Renu Desai & Steve Graham, 2014. "Informal Urban Sanitation: Everyday Life, Poverty, and Comparison," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 104(5), pages 989-1011, September.
    4. Solomon Benjamin, 2008. "Occupancy Urbanism: Radicalizing Politics and Economy beyond Policy and Programs," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3), pages 719-729, September.
    5. Kanbur, Ravi, 2009. "Conceptualising Informality: Regulation and Enforcement," IZA Discussion Papers 4186, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Searle, John R., 2005. "What is an institution?," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(1), pages 1-22, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Liza Rose Cirolia & Suraya Scheba, 2019. "Towards a multi-scalar reading of informality in Delft, South Africa: Weaving the ‘everyday’ with wider structural tracings," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(3), pages 594-611, February.
    2. Idalina Baptista, 2019. "Electricity services always in the making: Informality and the work of infrastructure maintenance and repair in an African city," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(3), pages 510-525, February.
    3. Sundaresan, Jayaraj, 2017. "Urban planning in vernacular governance: land use planning and violations in Bangalore, India," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 86388, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Ker-hsuan Chien, 2019. "Polarizing informality: Processual thinking, materiality and the emerging middle-class informality in Taipei," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 51(6), pages 1225-1241, September.
    5. Carol Upadhya & Deeksha M Rao, 2023. "Dispossession without displacement: Producing property through slum redevelopment in Bengaluru, India," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 55(2), pages 428-444, March.
    6. Chandan Deuskar, 2020. "Informal urbanisation and clientelism: Measuring the global relationship," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(12), pages 2473-2490, September.
    7. Monika Streule & Ozan Karaman & Lindsay Sawyer & Christian Schmid, 2020. "Popular Urbanization: Conceptualizing Urbanization Processes Beyond Informality," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(4), pages 652-672, July.
    8. Hermanus Stephanus Geyer Jr, 2023. "Precarious and non-precarious work in the informal sector: Evidence from South Africa," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(10), pages 1915-1931, August.
    9. Ligita Gasparėnienė & Rita Remeikienė & Colin C. Williams, 2022. "Unemployment and the Informal Economy," SpringerBriefs in Economics, Springer, number 978-3-030-96687-4, October.
    10. Hartmut Lehmann, 2015. "Informal Employment in Transition Countries: Empirical Evidence and Research Challenges," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 57(1), pages 1-30, March.
    11. Godin, M. & Hindriks, J., 2015. "A Review of Critical Issues on Tax Design and Tax Administration in a Global Economy and Developing Countries," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2015028, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    12. Shin, HaeRan & Chae, Sangwon, 2018. "Urbanisation and land use transition in a second-tier city: The emergence of small factories in Gimpo, South Korea," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 534-541.
    13. Spagano, Salvatore, 2021. "Generalized Darwinism: An Auxiliary Hypothesis," MPRA Paper 108829, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Masahiko Aoki, 2013. "Institutions as cognitive media between strategic interactions and individual beliefs," Chapters, in: Comparative Institutional Analysis, chapter 17, pages 298-312, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    15. Bustelo, Monserrat & Flabbi, Luca & Piras, Claudia & Tejada, Mauricio, 2019. "Female Labor Force Participation, Labor Market Dynamic and Growth in LAC," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 9420, Inter-American Development Bank.
    16. Simon Hartmann & Thomas Lindner & Jakob Müllner & Jonas Puck, 2022. "Beyond the nation-state: Anchoring supranational institutions in international business research," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 53(6), pages 1282-1306, August.
    17. Martine El Ouardi & Françoise Montambeault, 2023. "COLLECTIVELY GARDENING THE URBAN PUBLIC SPACE IN MEXICO CITY: When Informal Practices Interact with the State," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(2), pages 201-220, March.
    18. Rafaela Bastidas & Nicolás Acosta, 2019. "Misallocation and manufacturing TFP in Ecuador: formal, semi-formal and informal firms," Journal of Economic Structures, Springer;Pan-Pacific Association of Input-Output Studies (PAPAIOS), vol. 8(1), pages 1-29, December.
    19. Akay, Alpaslan & Khamis, Melanie, 2011. "The Persistence of Informality: Evidence from Panel Data," IZA Discussion Papers 6163, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Fran Tonkiss, 2015. "Afterword: Economies of infrastructure," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(2-3), pages 384-391, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:intare:v:19:y:2016:i:1:p:45-59. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.hufs.ac.kr/user/hufsenglish/re_1.jsp .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.