Informality, resilience, and the political implications of disaster governance

Pacific Affairs

Volumn 88, Issue 3, 2015, Pages 551-575

  Parthasarathy, D ^a  

^a INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY BOMBAY   (India)

Author keywords

Disaster governance; Disaster mitigation; Informality; Resilience; Urban flooding

Indexed keywords

CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICT; DISASTER MANAGEMENT; FLOODING; GOVERNANCE APPROACH; INFORMAL SECTOR; POLITICAL RELATIONS; URBAN PLANNING;

INDIA; MAHARASHTRA; MUMBAI;

EID: 84940109701     PISSN: 0030851X     EISSN: 17153379     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5509/2015883551     Document Type: Article

References (97)

1. Robert A. Stallings, "Weberian Political Sociology and Sociological Disaster Studies," Sociological Forum 17, no. 2 (2002): 282.
2. Stallings, "Weberian Political."
3. Jonathan S. Anjaria, "Urban Calamities A View From Mumbai," Space and Culture 9, no. 1 (2006): 82.
4. Anjaria, "Urban Calamities," 82.
5. Ananya Roy, "Urban Informality: Toward an Epistemology of Planning," Journal of the American Planning Association 71, no. 2 (2005): 147-158.
6. See D. Parthasarathy, "Social and Environmental Insecurities in Mumbai: Towards a Sociological Perspective on Vulnerability," South African Review of Sociology 40, no. 1 (2009): 109-126.
7. D. Parthasarathy, "Risk, Vulnerability and Resilience: Climate Change and the Urban Poor in Asia," in Human Security and Climate Change in Southeast Asia, eds. Lorraine Elliott and Mely Caballero-Anthony (New York, NY: Routledge, 2012).
8. Parthasarathy, "Social and Environmental," 109-126.
9. This emerged from an ongoing study assessing the post-2005 implementation of disastermitigation measures and disaster preparedness sponsored by the Mithi River Development and Planning Authority. Such concerns were especially expressed by officials of the National Disaster Management Authority which is better prepared now than in 2005. However, it is still relatively clueless in mobilization of poorer neighbourhoods for disaster preparedness.
10. Stuart Corbridge and Edward Simpson, Militant Cartographies and Traumatic Spaces: Ayodhya, Bhuj and the Contested Geographies of Hindutva (New Delhi: Sage, 2006).
11. Anjaria, "Urban Calamities."
12. Helsloot and Ruitenberg provide a wide-ranging survey of the literature on citizen response to disasters. See Ira Helsloot and Arnout Ruitenberg, "Citizen Response to Disasters: A Survey of Literature and some Practical Implications," Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 12, no. 3 (2004): 98-111. Media reports in India during times of disasters frequently mention this as well, highlighting the failure or delayed nature of state response.
13. Ben Wisner and Juha Uitto, "Life on the Edge: Urban Social Vulnerability and Decentralized, Citizen-based Disaster Risk Reduction in Four Large Cities of the Pacific Rim," in Facing Global Environmental Change: Environmental, Human, Energy, Food, Health and Water Security Concepts, eds. R.K. Pachauri et al. (Berlin: Springer, 2009), 215-231.
14. While civil society actors and NGOs may also be part of relief and rehabilitation efforts, the focus in this paper is solely on the unorganized efforts of citizens: unorganized or not formally organized or mobilized to deal with disaster situations.
15. For standard and widely used definitions of the informal economy, informal sector, and informal employment, see Ralf Hussmanns, "Defining and Measuring Informal Employment," Bureau of Statistics Paper, February 2004, http://www. ilo. org/public/english/bureau/stat/download/papers/meas. pdf, accessed 3 February 2015.
16. For a description of the formation of a city-wide NGO and citizen network (Karmayog), to provide emergency relief, rescue and rehabilitation services in the immediate aftermath of the 2005 floods, see Binti Singh, "Civil Society Organizations and Urban Governance: A Study of Civil Society- Urban Local Body Partnerships in Mumbai," (PhD dissertation, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, 2011.)
17. Alpaslan Ozerdem and Tim Jacoby, Disaster Management and Civil Society: Earthquake Relief in Japan, Turkey and India, vol. 1 (London: IB Tauris and Co., 2006).
18. Michael Douglass, "The Urban Transition of Environmental Disaster Governance in Asia," (working paper, Asia Research Institute, no. 210, 2013), www.nus.ari.edu.sg/pub/wps.htm, p. 24, accessed 17 October 2013.
19. Douglass, "The Urban Transition," 24.
20. Douglass Paton and David Moore Johnston, eds., Disaster Resilience: An Integrated Approach (Springfield Illinois: Charles C Thomas, 2006).
21. Interviews were conducted largely in Hindi, Marathi, and English, depending on the language abilities of the respondents.
22. A sample of seventeen respondents from the informal sector and a total of eight respondents from large Indian and global firms were interviewed. Since it was difficult to find respondents who had both participated in post-disaster relief and recovery, and were willing to be interviewed, snowball sampling enabled us to access respondents through referrals from the initial few who either helped us in our research, or were neighbourhood "social workers" who facilitated resilience and assisted our entry into the field for our rehabilitation surveys.
23. Especially those of the NDMA in Mumbai.
24. Close to 1,000 mm of rainfall was recorded within a 24-hour period.
25. Kapil Gupta, "Urban Flood Resilience Planning and Management and Lessons for the Future: A Case Study of Mumbai, India," Urban Water Journal 4, no. 3 (2007): 183-194.
26. Aromar Revi, "Lessons from the Deluge: Priorities for Multi-hazard Risk Mitigation," Economic and Political Weekly 40, no. 36 (2005): 3911-3916.
27. R.B. Bhagat, Mohua Guha, and Aparajita Chattopadhyay, "Mumbai after 26/7 Deluge: Issues and Concerns in Urban Planning," Population and Environment 27, no. 4 (2006): 337-349.
28. Parthasarathy, "Social and Environmental," 109-126.
29. Gupta, "Urban Flood," 183-194.
30. Gupta, "Urban Flood," 182-194.
31. Chitale Committee, Final Report of the Fact Finding Committee on Mumbai Floods (Government of Maharashtra, Mumbai, 2006).
32. UN-HABITAT, The State of Asian Cities 2010/11 (Fukuoka: UN-HABITAT, 2012), 21.
33. UN-HABITAT, State of Asian Cities, 21.
34. GreenAsh, "Natural Disaster Risk Levels of the World's Largest Cities," 14 March 2013 http:// greenash.net.au/thoughts/2013/03/natural-disaster-risk-levels-of-the-worlds-largest-cities/, accessed 8 April 2014.
35. The research on which this paper is based is a follow-up of an independently conducted study to the MMRDA-sponsored research project "Baseline Socio-economic Survey for Mithi River Environmental Improvement Project" (2006-08). Selected findings from an ongoing project "Integrated Impact Assessment Study of Mithi River" sponsored by MMRDA are also included in this paper. I wish to thank Nisha Pandey and Jaison Davis for their research assistance.
36. This plan was revised as the Greater Mumbai Disaster Management Action Plan in 2007. The plan is publicly available via: http://www.mcgm.gov.in/irj/portalapps/com.mcgm.aDisasterMgmt/ docs/Volume%201%20(Final).pdf, accessed 23 January 2015
37. Parthasarathy, "Social and Environmental," 109-126.
38. Douglass, "Urban Transition," 11.
39. Douglass, "Urban Transition," 4.
40. Douglass, "Urban Transition," 13. These concerns are reflected in the media reports during the disaster, as well as in interviews with selected respondents from affected firms.
41. One of the private power distributors was badly affected, as it kept most of its equipment in basements of buildings to save on rental costs.
42. D. Parthasarathy, "Urban Commons and Exclusion in the Indian City: Economic Liberalization and the Ghosts of Planning" (paper presented at the Inter-Congress of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, Kolkata, India, 12-14 December 2004).
43. Parthasarathy, "Social and Environmental," 109-126.
44. Amitabh Kundu, "Exclusionary Urbanisation in Asia: A Macro Overview," Economic and Political Weekly 48, no. 44 (2009): 48-58.
45. Douglass, "The Urban Transition."
46. All names are fictitious to protect the privacy of individuals and respondents.
47. Naveen Gala, interview by author, hand-written field notes, Kalina, 30 April 2007.
48. Tenth grade is the final year of high school in India.
49. Senior manager, interview by author, hand-written field notes, 16 May 2007.
50. Narayan Ramji, interview by author, hand-written notes, 14 May 2007.
51. The livelihood aspect of the slums of Dharavi is a key bone of contention in plans to redevelop the area.
52. Some of these associations survived the immediacy of demand for their services, and became small partnership firms over time.
53. P.S. Vivek, "Scavengers: Mumbai's Neglected Workers," Economic and Political Weekly 35, no. 42 (2000): 3722-3724.
54. Mouleshri Vyas, "Unionization as a Strategy in Community Organization in the Context of Privatization: The Case of Conservancy Workers in Mumbai," Community Development Journal 44, no. 3 (2009): 320-335.
55. Vivek, "Scavengers: Mumbai's Neglected Workers".
56. Stephanie Tam, "Sewerage's Reproduction of Caste: The Politics of Coprology in Ahmedabad, India," Radical History Review no. 116 (2013): 5-30.
57. Sandeep Kamble, interview by author, hand-written field notes, 4 June 2007.
58. Interview with an official of the National Disaster Management Authority in Mumbai, 6 July 2013.
59. See D. Parthasarathy, "Hunters, Gatherers and Foragers in a Metropolis: Commonising the Private and Public in Mumbai," Economic and Political Weekly, 46, no. 50 (2011): 55.
60. Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (Canada: Macmillan, 2007).
61. Activist with a Mumbai-based Sanitation NGO, interview by author, hand-written field notes, 17 March 2007.
62. Amita Baviskar, "Cows, Cars and Cycle-rickshaws: Bourgeois Environmentalism and the Battle for Delhi's Streets" in Elite and Everyman: The Cultural Politics of the Indian Middle Classes, eds. Amita Baviskar and Raka Ray (New Delhi: Routledge, 2011): 391-418.
63. Sandeep Asher, "Every Week, 5 Conservancy Workers Die in Mumbai," DNA India, 29 January 2010.
64. M. Maskey et al., "Leptospirosis in Mumbai: Post-deluge Outbreak 2005," Indian Journal of Medical Microbiology 24, no. 4 (2006): 337.
65. There was an outbreak of leptospirosis which was localized to some areas, and did not become a city-wide epidemic.
66. Activist/researcher with a Mumbai-based health NGO, interview by author, hand-written field notes, 21 March 2007.
67. Julian Agyeman, Robert D. Bullard, and Bob Evans, "Exploring the Nexus: Bringing together Sustainability, Environmental Justice and Equity," Space and Polity 6, no. 1 (2002): 77-90.
68. Anjaria, "Urban Calamities" 82.
69. David Sanderson, "Cities, Disasters and Livelihoods," Environment and Urbanization 12, no. 2 (2000): 93-102.
70. David Sanderson, "Cities, Disasters and Livelihoods," 102.
71. Douglass, "Urban Transition."
72. Yosef Jabareen, "Planning the Resilient City: Concepts and Strategies for Coping with Climate Change and Environmental Risk," Cities 31 (2012): 220-229.
73. Douglass, "Urban Transition," 16.
74. Douglass, "Urban Transition."
75. Keith Faulks, Citizenship: Key Ideas (London: Routledge, 2000).
76. Samaddar, Subhajyoti et al., "Participatory Risk Mapping for Identifying Spatial Risks in Flood Prone Slum Areas, Mumbai," Disaster Prevention Research Institute Annuals, B54, no. B (2011): 137-146. The Yonmenkaigi System Method, originating in Japan, is used to develop collaborative action plans for community-level disaster mitigation and management.
77. Arjen Boin and Paul Schulman, "Assessing NASA's Safety Culture: The Limits and Possibilities of High-Reliability Theory," Public Administration Review 68, no. 6 (2008): 1059.
78. Boin and Schulman, "Assessing NASA's," 1059.
79. I wish to thank Ravi Ranjan for drawing my attention to this literature.
80. Keith Hart, "The Informal Economy," in The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics Vol. 2, eds. John Eatwell, M. Milgate, and P. Newman (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1987), 846.
81. Hart, "The Informal Economy," 846.
82. Ulrich Beck, World Risk Society (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 1999).
83. Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens, and Scott Lash, Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994).
84. Gabe Mythen, "Reappraising the Risk Society Thesis Telescopic Sight or Myopic Vision?" Current Sociology 55, no. 6 (2007): 793-813.
85. Brian Wynne, "Risk and Environment as Legitimatory Discourses of Technology: Reflexivity Inside Out?" Current Sociology 50, no. 3 (2002): 459-477.
86. Liseli Bull-Kamanga et al., "From Everyday Hazards to Disasters: The Accumulation of Risk in Urban Areas," Environment and Urbanization 15, no. 1 (2003): 193.
87. David Harvey, "From Managerialism to Entrepreneurialism: The Transformation in Urban Governance in Late Capitalism," Geografiska Annaler 71, no. 1 (1989): 3-17.
88. Robert A. Stallings and Enrico L. Quarantelli, "Emergent Citizen Groups and Emergency Management," Public Administration Review 45, (1985): 93-100.
89. Abdou Maliq Simone, "People as Infrastructure: Intersecting Fragments in Johannesburg," Public Culture 16, no. 3 (2004): 407-429.
90. Simone, "People as Infrastructure," 407.
91. Abdoumaliq Simone, "Straddling the Divides: Remaking Associational Life in the Informal African City," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 25, no. 1 (2001): 102-117.
92. Asef Bayat, "Activism and Social Development in the Middle East," International Journal of Middle East Studies 34, no. 1 (2002): 1-28.
93. Susan J. Smith, "States, Markets and an Ethic of Care," Political Geography 24, no. 1 (2005): 1-20.
94. Veronica Crossa, "Converting the 'Small Stories' into 'Big' Ones: A Response to Susan Smith's 'States, Markets and an Ethic of Care'," Political Geography 24, no. 1 (2005): 29-34.
95. Crossa, "Converting the 'Small Stories.'"
96. Parthasarathy, "Hunters, Gatherers," 55.
97. Roy, "Urban Informality," 147.