ABSTRACT
This chapter, dwelling on displacement – as both a local and a global phenomenon that eventually entangles with and dissolves into dynamics of urban change – reflects on a transitory urban locale’s capacity as an operative ground over which displaced persons consolidate identities as ‘urban subjects’ through their endeavors in a settlement. Dwelling on the challenges faced by externally displaced persons on the one hand and the host community under displacement pressure on the other, the text visits issues ranging from urban transiency and the possibility of true settlement and socio-economic reciprocities among groups to their collective appropriation of informalities. It also visits the equally compelling topics of functional(ized) legislatory fissures and functional capacities of self-governing organizational logic.
