Ray, Raktim;
Papaioannou, Theo;
(2025)
Conflict politics at the margins of the neoliberal state in the postcolonial context: the case anti-power grid movement of Bhangar in Kolkata.
Area Development and Policy
10.1080/23792949.2025.2500082.
(In press).
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Abstract
The hegemonic identity of neoliberal development is prevalent in the postcolonial world, where the state maintains an ambiguous identity of being a proponent of welfare and simultaneously dispossesses people at the margins through capital accumulation. This article draws on the empirical case of Bhangar’s anti-power grid movement in Kolkata to show multiple relationships and conflict politics strategies that exist between the neoliberal state and the civil society formed by people at the margins. To counter the capital accumulation by the state, civil society sometimes co-opts with the state, at other times it negotiates with the state and often resists the state through specific strategies. The paper defines these heterogeneities of relations as conflict politics. It argues that such a framework of conflict politics not only facilitates the right to resist as an important principle for developmental politics but also helps to unpack different subjectivities of developmentalism in the postcolonial context.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Conflict politics at the margins of the neoliberal state in the postcolonial context: the case anti-power grid movement of Bhangar in Kolkata |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1080/23792949.2025.2500082 |
| Publisher version: | https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/rard20 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent. |
| Keywords: | Conflict politics, power grid, land politics, developmentalism, neoliberal state, postcolonial context, capital accumulation |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > Development Planning Unit |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10207988 |
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