The volatile neighbourhood: urban proximity, precarity and public order in early twentieth-century Kanpur city in the United Provinces of British India

2025/07/04 by Javed Iqbal Wani · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Anthropological Studies and Insights #South Asian Studies and Conflicts #Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies

paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s0963926825000100

openalex publication_date 2025/07/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21

Abstract

Abstract By examining a protracted instance of workers’ militant action in the city of Kanpur in the 1930s, the article will examine the significance of the neighbourhood in workers’ lives and its interplay with urban politics that often led to public order crises for the government. It will argue that such crises revealed shortcomings in colonial urban governance and will show that urban proximity accentuated precarity and brought a diverse set of workers together to agitate for their rights and stake claims to political power in the city.

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