Of Poverty and Plastic: Scavenging and Scrap Trading Entrepreneurs in India's Urban Informal Economy

Neuausgabe 2009
ISBN: 978-0-19-806086-4
Verlag: OXFORD UNIV PR

Buch, Englisch, 300 Seiten, Format (B × H): 145 mm x 218 mm, Gewicht: 522 g

Of Poverty and Plastic applies an interdisciplinary, 'field economics' approach to poverty analysis, using a mix of survey and ethnographic data to challenge received notions of the nature and extent of narrow income poverty and multiple deprivations experienced by those working in the informal waste recovery and plastic recycling economy of Delhi.
A detailed analysis of specialization, capital, and value in various segments of this labour-intensive, 'green' informal market is undertaken, with explicit recognition of its wider social and political institutional context, and how it is shaped by unequal interactions with civil society and the state. In particular, the book focuses on the identity and agency of subordinate scheduled caste groups-living literally and metaphorically on the edge of the city-in negotiating 'a decent life' in
today's neoliberal environment.
The case studies of the ban on recycled polythene bags and the industrial relocation order illustrate the channels through which these actors collectively seek to resist the perceived anti-urban poor status quo, driven by powerful middle class coalitions through legislation or judicial fiat, with varying degrees of success. In doing so, the book exposes the complex, and at times contrary, policy reality binding poverty and deprivation, formal and informal markets, the state and citizenship in
contemporary urban India.

Zielgruppe

Prescient and insightful, this book will be a valuable resource for scholars of development economics and development studies, new institutional economics, sociology, anthropology, and environmental studies. It will also be useful to development practitioners, NGOs, activists, policymakers, as well as the lay reader interested in environmental issues.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Gill

Gill, Kaveri

Fachgebiete

• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftssektoren & Branchen Energie- & Versorgungswirtschaft Entsorgungswirtschaft
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Internationale Wirtschaft Entwicklungsökonomie & Emerging Markets
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Soziale Ungleichheit, Armut, Rassismus
• Geowissenschaften Umweltwissenschaften Abfallbeseitigung, Abfallentsorgung
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Internationale Wirtschaft Volkswirtschaften einzelner Länder und Regionen
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Volkswirtschaftslehre Allgemein Arbeitsmarkt

Über Autor(innen)

Kaveri Gill completed the book while holding a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Cambridge. She is at present a Consultant with the Planning Commission of India.