Wandering in a mall: aspirations and family among young urban poor men in Delhi

TY - JOUR

T1 - Wandering in a mall

T2 - aspirations and family among young urban poor men in Delhi

AU - Zabiliute, Emilija

PY - 2016/7/2

Y1 - 2016/7/2

N2 - In post-reform India, urban spaces have been redefined and reoriented towards the consumer public and are becoming increasingly segregated along class lines. While most of the scholarly attention has focused on the marginalization and segregation generated by anti-poor development in cities like Delhi, which aim to be ‘world-class’, less attention has been paid to the ways in which the poor experience the city and its middle-class consumer-oriented localities. In this article, I explore the ways in which urban poor young men who live in a squatter settlement on the fringes of the city aspire to social mobility as they wander in Delhi’s middle-class consumer-oriented spaces. Wandering (ghūmnā) is evaluated differently by young men and their parents, pointing to generational and gendered distinctions. For young men, such wandering is a means to participate in the consumer culture, while their families evaluate it as a waste of time and useless (bekār) behaviour. By placing aspirations in a temporal perspective, I show how the young men adjust their aspirations relationally, as they take up new roles as carers of their families.

AB - In post-reform India, urban spaces have been redefined and reoriented towards the consumer public and are becoming increasingly segregated along class lines. While most of the scholarly attention has focused on the marginalization and segregation generated by anti-poor development in cities like Delhi, which aim to be ‘world-class’, less attention has been paid to the ways in which the poor experience the city and its middle-class consumer-oriented localities. In this article, I explore the ways in which urban poor young men who live in a squatter settlement on the fringes of the city aspire to social mobility as they wander in Delhi’s middle-class consumer-oriented spaces. Wandering (ghūmnā) is evaluated differently by young men and their parents, pointing to generational and gendered distinctions. For young men, such wandering is a means to participate in the consumer culture, while their families evaluate it as a waste of time and useless (bekār) behaviour. By placing aspirations in a temporal perspective, I show how the young men adjust their aspirations relationally, as they take up new roles as carers of their families.

U2 - 10.1080/09584935.2016.1208638

DO - 10.1080/09584935.2016.1208638

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0958-4935

SP - 1

EP - 14

JO - Contemporary South Asia

JF - Contemporary South Asia

ER -