Eviction could hold a different meaning if a home’s immediate surroundings contribute to its residents’ livelihood, especially for informal laborers. This paper explores the notion of the fragility of a home within an expanded space—the space on which a home stands and its surroundings when turned into a contested area. It specifically looks at the slum of Yamuna Pushta in Delhi, which was demolished in 2004. The act uprooted thousands of low-income families who were blamed for polluting the river. The demolition was fueled by new urban visions and planning strategies, political and capitalist ambitions, projections of national pride, and an event-driven approach camouflaged under an environmentalist concern attempting to “clean” the river. Using the photographic works of artist, curator, and activist Ravi Agarwal as a case study, this paper argues the presence of a counternarrative in the works, challenging the projected environmentalist discourse around the river, the slum dwellers. This study further states the dual marginalization of the Pushta residents and the Yamuna by critiquing the economic format of majoritarianism through the growing normalcy and agreeability of the slum demolitions by the urban non-poor disguised as the “greater good”.

中文翻译：

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创造更好的空间：神圣的亚穆纳河生活


如果房屋的周围环境有助于居民的生计，特别是对于非正规劳工来说，驱逐可能具有不同的意义。本文探讨了房屋在扩展空间内的脆弱性概念——房屋所在的空间及其周围环境在变成有争议的区域时。它特别关注了德里的亚穆纳普什塔贫民窟，该贫民窟于 2004 年被拆除。该法案使数千名被指责污染河流的低收入家庭背井离乡。新的城市愿景和规划战略、政治和资本主义的野心、民族自豪感的预测，以及隐藏在试图“清理”河流的环保主义关注之下的事件驱动方法，推动了拆除工作。本文以艺术家、策展人和活动家拉维·阿加瓦尔（Ravi Agarwal）的摄影作品作为案例研究，论证了作品中存在的反叙事，挑战了围绕河流和贫民窟居民的环保主义话语。这项研究进一步阐述了普什塔居民和亚穆纳人的双重边缘化，通过城市非贫困人口伪装成“更大的利益”而拆除贫民窟的日益常态化和可接受性，批评了多数主义的经济形式。