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Ordinary states: Everyday corruption and the politics of space in Mumbai
Author(s) -
ANJARIA JONATHAN SHAPIRO
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1111/j.1548-1425.2010.01292.x
Subject(s) - politics , citizenship , language change , space (punctuation) , negotiation , state (computer science) , ethnography , democracy , sociology , corporate governance , political economy , political science , law and economics , public administration , law , social science , economics , anthropology , art , linguistics , philosophy , literature , finance , algorithm , computer science
In this article, I draw from fieldwork on the micropractices of hawkers’ illicit dealings with low‐level state functionaries in Mumbai, India, to explore how claims to city space are negotiated. I argue that what is often understood as a breakdown in urban governance is, instead, what I call an “ordinary space of negotiation” that constitutes the grounds on which claims to substantive citizenship are made. This ethnographic exploration of what practices of corruption produce has the possibility to expand how scholars think about the state and political claim making in liberal democratic contexts at large.