Contesting urban metabolism : struggles over waste-to-energy in Delhi, India
Demaria, Federico (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Schindler, Seth (University of Sheffield. Department of Geography)

Date:	2016
Abstract:	Recent scholarship on the materiality of cities has been criticized by critical urban scholars for being overly descriptive and failing to account for political economy. We argue that through the conceptualization of urban metabolisms advanced by ecological economists and industrial ecologists, materialist and critical perspectives can be mutually enriching. We focus on conflict that has erupted in Delhi, India. Authorities have embraced waste-to-energy incinerators, and wastepickers fear that these changes threaten their access to waste, while middle class residents oppose them because of their deleterious impact on ambient air quality. We narrate the emergence of an unlikely alliance between these groups, whose politics opposes the production of a waste-based commodity frontier within the city. We conclude that the materiality and political economy of cities are co-constituted, and contestations over the (re)configuration of urban metabolisms span these spheres as people struggle to realize situated urban political ecologies.
Grants:	European Commission 266642 Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad FPI/CSO2010-21979
Note:	Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Environmental justice ; Political economy ; Southern metropolises ; Urban political ecology ; Waste ; Commodity frontier
Published in:	Antipode, Vol. 48, issue 2 (March 2016) , p. 293-313, ISSN 1467-8330

DOI: 10.1111/anti.12191

21 p, 268.6 KB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles