The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH) invite you to a workshop on:
Differentiated Citizenship: Study of a Slum in Delhi
Speaker:
Rashmi Bala, Doctoral Researcher, Urban Studies, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University Delhi
Tuesday, 23rd December 2025, 3:45 PM IST onwards.
This event will be held in a hybrid mode at the CPR Conference Room and online via Zoom. Please register to attend.
Register to attend via Zoom
Register to attend in person
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.
About the speaker
Rashmi Bala is pursuing PhD in Urban Studies at Dr. B. R. 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.
