Ajay Gandhi

Ajay Gandhi is a PhD student in Anthropology at Yale University. In 2008-2009 he is based at the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research while writing his dissertation. Broadly, his PhD is on the changing urban landscape in Delhi’s old city, “Shahjahanabad”. The dissertation, based on archival and ethnographic research conducted in India from 2006-2008, is divided into three main components. First, it draws on data collected in Delhi municipal archives, supplemented by interviews with planning officials, politicians and the police. This illustrates patterns of state intervention in Old Delhi since Indian independence in 1947, including periods of aggressive policing, building demolitions, and displacement of residents, under the rubric of population control and urban beautification. Second, the dissertation builds on participant observation and interviews conducted with migrant labourers from northern states who work in large wholesale bazaars and labour camps within Delhi’s old city. This allows for an understanding of the informal economic practices and illicit trades prevalent amongst a floating population of the urban poor, as well as forms of popular leisure and consumption that have resulted in the “plebianization” of city space. Third, the dissertation employs fieldwork conducted with lower-middle class and working class Muslims who are long-standing residents of “slum” enclaves within Old Delhi. This allows for an understanding of notions of legitimacy and representation in dealings with municipal authorities and the police, as well as ethical predicaments spawned by urban segregation and community fragmentation.

His PhD research was funded by fellowships from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the U.S. National Science Foundation, and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. In 2009, he will take up a residential fellowship in Berlin sponsored by the Irmgard Coninx Stiftung and the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung.