Sudharsan Natraj Sivapiran I 10761564 I Research Seminar - Gabriele PasquiI Politecnico Di Milano, Italy

SLUMDOG CITIES: RETHINKING SUBALTERN URBANISM

Ananya Roy

This essay aims to understand urban studies from different perspectives while analyzing the
transformation and development of the Global South cities. Unlike the mainstream perception for the
Global South urbanism model as megacities, this essay considers this vibrant and innovative model as
subaltern urbanism. In this regard, the structure of the essay will follow the topics such as the
development of the cities, informality, and the four emergent concepts which are mentioned in the
article.

In the recent context of urbanism, the "megacity" is widely recognized as a new definition to
describe the development of the Global South. Due to evoking the major problems of
underdevelopment, the term "megacity" is mostly excluded from contemporary urban studies. With the
rethinking of subaltern urbanism, the understanding of development has been changed to a perception
that questions the existing epistemological categories. Instead of assuming slums as places of dystopian
poverty, disease, and environmental toxicity, they can become places for dynamic entrepreneurship. In
some further examples as Dharavi became an industrial success story, creating a million-dollar economic
value, and housing more than 20.000 mini-factories.

Besides the economic achievement, the example shows a success story of informality. This
notion often gives a solid-base argument for optimist libertarians, such as Hernando de Soto who
defines these slums as a "people's economy" habited by "heroic entrepreneurs". The fact that this
economic success is achieved under circumstances of no state existence, as a revolution from below,
strengthens this argument. Another good example of this notion would be “Kowloon Walled City” which
existed between 1912 and 1994. The city was a non-governed area between China and British Hong
Kong. It created its services and its economy, and sustained these for almost a century, although it has
no governmental mechanism. Thus, it is still one of the most groundbreaking examples of the economic
and social capabilities of informality in the context of urbanism.

Regarding the author's approach to the necessity of new geographies of theory, these new
geographies emerge as four concepts: peripheries, urban informality, zones of exception, and gray
spaces. Being interstitial spaces between urban and rural, peripheries are considered generative spaces
of innovation. Urban informality, despite the mainstream hasty association with poverty and
marginality, is argued that it is a unique space production model with spatial value, neglecting legit
instruments. Zones of exception refer to liberated spaces where the suspension of sovereign rules
allows for the new deployment. Lastly, gray spaces bring the flexibility of hegemon authority further,
located at the periphery of peripheries.

As a result, subaltern urbanism has a significant role in urban studies and newly emergent
situations. Regarding subaltern theory, four emergent concepts which are peripheries, urban
informality, zones of exception, and gray spaces have been researched and analyzed. The result
achieved is the concept of the subaltern is the term we should follow and refer to; however, it is also
difficult to reach.