ABSTRACT
Since the 1990s there has been a renewed emphasis in India on megacities such as Mumbai as symbols of economic growth – as organisational nodes in the global economy. Slums such as Dharavi, once located on the urban fringe, now constitute the residence of more than 50 per cent of Mumbai’s population and are becoming the focus of attention in the ‘new’ developmental discourse which brings terms such as participatory governance, public-private partnership for inclusive growth, social capital and local level entrepreneurship to the fore. Media representations of slums seem to have undergone a dramatic change over the years, from earlier representations which described them as spaces of urban disintegration where the state had abandoned its civic responsibility, to current descriptions that talk about entrepreneurial slums and economic success stories. This chapter argues that these shifts in representation are tied to changes in the way in which the state is perceived: from initially being an ‘agent of development’, it is now commonly seen as an ‘enabler’ whose role is to coordinate the activities of other administrative and financial bodies. To this end, this chapter makes use of ethnography based on research on housing issues in Dharavi since the 1980s.
