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，作为调查后殖民大城市城市民主的窗口。因此，该项目探索城市民主，对交通工具的研究提供了一个独特而有价值的优势。这个拟议的项目将是第一个遵循这些运输运营商与印度政府机构互动时的法律和政治索赔叙述的项目。将“纸面法律”转化为可操作的法规对所有法律体系都至关重要。本研究的问题是，这些纸面上的法律、规则和条例是如何被框定、争议和最终在实际实践中实施的。该项目通过绘制运营商工会、交通官员、法院、律师和公民协会之间的日常合作和争论来实现这一目标，以维持城市层面的法律运作，在更广泛的城市政治和宪法权利语言的叙述中。该项目对社会法学研究和人类学做出了重大贡献。本项目提出的问题是：小型交通运营商的政治行动如何影响后殖民大都市的民主进程？这些小型交通运营商包括机动人力车司机、自行车人力车司机和以前的马车司机，他们都属于城市的贫困工人。本研究对这些运输经营者成为政治代理人的法律和政治过程进行了历史上的民族志调查。该研究探讨了贫困劳动者如何参与和协商城市治理，不仅是通过法外动员和要求，而且还通过在民主决策、正式政治和权利语言的框架内开展工作。研究资料可以追溯到1911年，当时德里成为印度首都。在对民主的研究中，该项目将城市贫困工人通过政治行动提出的集体和个人包容性要求置于中心位置。本研究采用民族志和档案方法，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：a)民主实际上是如何运作的？b)在经济、社会和环境极不稳定的时代，我们城市城市化进程的性质。更具体地说，该研究调查了在非西方背景下，民主功能如何与城市工作穷人的生活相交，他们的工作跨越了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启示意义。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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.