Markets, Capitalism and Urban Space in India - Right to Sell

This book analyses the question of the right to the city, informal economies and the non-western shape of neoliberal governance in India through a new analytic: the right to sell.

The book examines why and how states attempt to curb, control, and eliminate markets of urban informal street vendors. Focusing on Kolkata, the author provides a theoretical explanation of this puzzle by distilling and analysing the inherent tensions among the constitutive elements of neoliberal governance, namely, growth imperative, market activism, and corporatization, and demonstrates its implications for the formal/informal boundaries of the economy.

A useful addition to the existing literatures on the right to the city, informal economies, and the shapes that neoliberalism takes in the non-west, the book provides a non-western counter to accounts of neoliberalism and will be of interest to academics working in the fields of South Asian Studies, Urban Studies, and Political Economy.

List of contents

Acknowledgments; PART I Anxiety of Markets Chapter 1: Introduction; Chapter 2: Neoliberalism, (In)formality, and Markets; PART II Politics of Street Vending Chapter 3: Selling of Spaces/Spaces of Selling; Chapter 4: Politics of Disruption; PART III Conflicts/Compromise Chapter 5: Rights or Rightlessness?; Chapter 6: Conclusion

About the author

Anirban Acharya is Professor of Practice in Political Science, Le Moyne College, USA.

Summary

This book analyses the question of the right to the city, informal economies and the non-western shape of neoliberal governance in India through a new analytic: the right to sell. It will be of interest to academics working in the fields of South Asian Studies, Urban Studies, and Political Economy.

Product details

• Authors: Anirban Acharya
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 29.07.2022
• EAN: 9780367465728
• ISBN: 978-0-367-46572-8
• No. of pages: 230
• Series: Routledge Research on Urban Asia
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education; Ethnic Studies, Business and Management, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Regional Studies, POLITICAL SCIENCE / World / Asian, India, Business & management, Politics & government, Regional Studies, Political Economy, Politics and government, Regional / International studies, Sociology: work & labour, urban economics, Urban communities, Development Studies, Development economics & emerging economies, Development economics and emerging economies, Sociology: work and labour, Regional / urban economics, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Cultural & Ethnic Studies / General