Doctoral Dissertation Research: Small-scale transport operators and political action

该项目对小规模运输部门进行人类学研究，作为调查后殖民时代特大城市城市民主的窗口。因此，该项目探讨了城市民主，对运输者的研究提供了一个独特而有价值的Vantage位置。这一拟议项目将是第一个遵循这些运输运营商的法律的和政治主张的叙述，因为他们与印度的政府机构互动。将“纸面法律”转化为可操作的法规对所有法律的制度都至关重要。本研究质疑这些纸上谈兵的法律、法规和规章是如何在实践中被制定、争议和最终实施的。该项目通过绘制运营商工会，运输官僚，法院，律师和公民协会社区之间制定法规的日常合作和协调来实现这一目标，以维持城市层面的法律运作，在城市政治和宪法权利语言的更广泛叙述中。该项目对社会法律研究和人类学的重大贡献。该项目要求：小规模运输经营者的政治行动--本研究进行了历史上知情的，民族志调查的法律的和政治进程，这些运输经营者成为政治代理人。该研究探讨了工作穷人如何参与和谈判城市治理，并不总是通过法外的动员和要求，但也通过民主决策，正式的政治和权利语言的框架内工作。这些研究材料可以追溯到1911年，当时德里成为首都。在民主的研究中，该项目将城市贫困劳动者通过政治行动提出的集体和个人的包容要求置于中心地位。这项研究，采用民族志和档案的方法，将在印度的法院和档案馆，英国的殖民档案馆，政府办公室和德里的街道上进行。本研究探讨了当代两个基本问题的纠缠：一）民主制度实际上是如何运作的？以及B）在经济、社会和环境极不稳定的时期，我们城市的城市化进程的性质。更具体地说，该研究调查了民主运作如何与城市工作穷人的生活相交，他们的工作跨越了非西方背景下有组织和无组织的经济部门。该项目对帮助美国和国外城市环境中服务不足的贫困工人的补救措施具有影响。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project undertakes an anthropological study of the small-scale transport sector as a window to investigating urban democracy in a post-colonial mega-city. Thus, the project explores urban democracy for which a study of transporters provides a unique and valuable vantage point. This proposed project will be the first to follow the narrative of legal and political claims-making of these transport operators, as they interact with governmental institutions in India. Translating 'paper laws' into actionable regulation is critical for all legal systems. This research queries how these paper laws, rules and regulations are framed, contested and finally implemented in actual practice. The project accomplishes this by mapping the every-day co-operation and contestation in framing regulations between the communities of operator unions, transport bureaucrats, courts, lawyers, and civic associations to sustain the city-level operation of the law, within the broader narrative of city politics and constitutional rights language. Significant contributions to sociolegal research and anthropology flow from this project. This project asks: How does the political action of small-scale transport operators--the auto-rickshaw drivers, cycle-rickshaw pullers, and erstwhile horse carriage drivers all belonging to the urban working poor, affect democratic processes in the postcolonial megacity? This study undertakes a historically informed, ethnographic investigation on the legal and political processes by which these transport operators become political agents . The research explores how the working poor participate in and negotiate urban governance, not always through extra-legal mobilizations and demands, but also by working within the framework of democratic policymaking, formal politics, and rights language. The study materials date to 1911, when Delhi became the capital. In its study of democracy, the project brings center stage the collective and individual claims for inclusion that the urban working poor make through their political action. This research, employing both ethnographic and archival methods, will be conducted in courts and archives in India, colonial archives in the UK, government offices, and the street in Delhi. This study examines the entanglement of two fundamental queries in contemporary times: a) how does a democracy actually function? and b) the nature of urbanization processes in our cities in times of great economic, social, and environmental precarity. More specifically, the study investigates how democratic functioning intersects with the lives of the urban working poor whose work straddles the organized and unorganized sectors of the economy in a non-western context. The project has implications for remedial measures to aid underserved, poor workers in urban environments in the U.S. and abroad.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.