Neighbourhoods of Change: Mapping Transformations in Middle Class Urban Dwelling in Kolkata

Paper Abstract: Compared to their Western counterparts, South Asian cities with colonial pasts have experienced widely different trajectories of urbanization. These have affected the socio-spatial reckoning of the 'urban', evident in the boundaries established by diverse, hierarchically-related groups, between 'private' and 'public', 'known' and 'unknown', 'desirable' and 'undesirable' in urban space, an instance of which, at the level of everyday urban dwelling, is the residential neighbourhood. Traditionally, urbanites have identified themselves as inhabitants of neighbourhood and also of the city, with the former being the prime site where perceptions of identity and belonging are forged. The familiar socio-spatial strategies of localised neighbourhood-life have, however, seen large-scale shifts due to neoliberalism and entry of global corporate capital which has considerably affected urban housing and development policy. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork in middle-class para-s (residential neighbourhoods) of Kolkata, this paper maps how socio-spatial dynamics visible at this level indicate ongoing, broader, transformations in the modalities of urban social life. It focuses on two aspects, first, the shifts in earlier built-form of the para - the large-scale overhauling of independent family dwellings and the proliferation of modern apartment houses - and, second, how these have affected existing para-based sociabilities. While situating these within the nexus of corporate capital, globalised middle-class tastes, local-level actors, and, urban housing policy, it also highlights the possibilities offered by para-s in nurturing embedded forms of urban social life. It thus argues that neighbourhood as a category can be a relevant methodological entry point in understanding urban transformation in South Asia.