Grown in Delhi: A Political Ecology of Social Networks and Agency Among Yamuna Farmers 3031263790, 9783031263798

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Cities and Nature

Jessica Ann Diehl

Grown in Delhi A Political Ecology of Social Networks and Agency Among Yamuna Farmers

Cities and Nature Series Editors Peter Newman, Sustainability Policy Institute, Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia Cheryl Desha, School of Engineering and Built Environment, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD, Australia Alessandro Sanches-Pereira , Instituto 17, São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

Cities and Nature fosters high-quality multi-disciplinary research addressing the interface between cities and the natural environment. It provides a valuable source of relevant knowledge for researchers, planners and policy-makers. The series welcomes empirically based, cutting-edge and theoretical research in urban geography, urban planning, environmental planning, urban ecology, regional science and economics. It publishes peer-reviewed edited and authored volumes on topics dealing with the urban and the environment nexus, including: spatial dynamics of urban built areas, urban and peri-urban agriculture, urban greening and green infrastructure, environmental planning, urban forests, urban ecology, regional dynamics and landscape fragmentation.

Jessica Ann Diehl

Grown in Delhi A Political Ecology of Social Networks and Agency Among Yamuna Farmers

Jessica Ann Diehl Master of Landscape Architecture Programme, Department of Architecture National University of Singapore Singapore, Singapore

ISSN 2520-8306 ISSN 2520-8314 (electronic) Cities and Nature ISBN 978-3-031-26379-8 ISBN 978-3-031-26380-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26380-4 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Poverty and vulnerability are not synonymous. Poverty doesn’t describe what people lack or need.1 A certain amount of storytelling seems absolutely essential to convey the texture and conduct of class relations.2

1

Blaikie, P., Cannon, T., Davis, I., Wisner, B., Cannon, T., Davis, I., & Wisner, B. (1994). At risk: Natural hazards, people’s vulnerability and disasters. New York: Routledge. 2 Scott, J. C. (1985). Weapons of the weak: Everyday forms of peasant resistance. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Preface

Field notes, or how this project found me. It is hard for me to define my field of study. Because it’s complex. I struggle to pare down my research as a sound bite. And frankly, it’s a shame because it is the complexity—the diverse and overlapping parts—that matter. Particularly around urban agriculture discourse. Urban agriculture is about producing food for urban populations—but it is also about livelihoods, rural to urban migration, and the sustainability of cities; it is about food security and food sovereignty, prioritizing land development, policies that protect the environment, and economic viability; and it is about discrimination, gender bias, and injustice. Urban agriculture, as a system and a practice, reaches across micro to macro scale, and spans all sectors and levels of society. Yet, it originates in the lived experience of the producers—the farmers. The oft cited, and I believe the most useful, definition and conceptualization of urban agriculture is by Luc J.A. Mougeot (2000), as: [A]n industry located within (intra-urban) or on the fringe (peri-urban) of a town, a city or a metropolis, which grows or raises, processes and distributes a diversity of food and non-food products, (re-)using largely human and material resources, products and services found in and around that urban area, and in turn supplying human and material resources, products and services largely to that urban area.

Importantly, urban agriculture uses urban resources, e.g., land, labor, urban organic wastes, and water, produces for urban citizens, is strongly influenced by urban conditions, e.g., policies, land values, urban markets and prices, and impacts the urban system by affecting urban food security and poverty, ecology, and health (van Veenhizen 2006). Maybe you thought urban agriculture was about food. You are right, it is about food. But it is about food embedded in household activities, communities, infrastructures, policies, environmental conditions, and society. The last, society, is something that often goes overlooked or may be considered irrelevant or tangential to the real problems facing urban agriculture as a sustainable system. But it is society that

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deems it relevant. It is society that creates a market, that places value on ‘the farmer,’ that enables urban agriculture to be embedded rather than in conflict with the urban system. And it is society that surrounds and buffers urban farmers in their pursuit of sustainable livelihoods. Now I confess the subjects of this book, the urban farmers in Delhi, India are a unique case. Few cities besides Delhi have a vast undeveloped floodplain available for farming in their urban center. But I argue that the case of Delhi illuminates the many faces and challenges of farming in the city. And my conversations with Delhi farmers, literally in the field, permitted me the essential storytelling called for by James C. Scott in his book Weapons of the Weak that enabled me to bridge the unique with the universal. The first time I walked into the field on the floodplain of the Yamuna River— planted with okra at the time—with my research team, we were interested in whether the farmers grew enough produce to make a meaningful impact on food security in Delhi. There wasn’t really any published information or data on urban agriculture in Delhi. Our intension was simply to describe the current state of farming practices, benefits and barriers. After the five-week pilot study, we left India and returned to the United States with pages of notes from our conversations with farming families translated through a Hindi-English interpreter. They described impending development of the land and consequent displacement. The question of feeding Delhi suddenly seemed naive. An excerpt from ‘Urban Agriculture in Delhi, India,’ a research blog, describing the context of Delhi farming https://urbanagdelhi.wordpress.com/ written by Jessica Diehl, pilot study research team Black waters Today is our first day taking a break from interviews so that we can have a little time to reflect. To date we have talked to 21 farming families over six days in six relatively distinct areas. All but one area is adjacent to (or in, as is the case with one island community) the Yamuna River. A brief description of the Yamuna: this is the primary water body flowing north to south through Delhi. It is the second holiest river in India. There is a span of approximately 22 kilometers between two barrages that function as flood control for the local population. Having now been in a small rowboat in the river, I can attest to the dirtiness of the water. It is black–you literally lose sight of the boat’s oars immediately upon immersion into the water. And there are black blobs of organic waste floating along. The smell is describable, but I will refrain. In addition, it is the unseen, un-smelled additives that come from both industrial effluent and agricultural runoff that deadens this water. And the farmers seem keenly aware that the river water is “dirty.” They farm along the Yamuna because it is the floodplain…

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Based on our brief time interviewing, we have found that very few people working the land actually own it. Some pay rent to a private landowner (called a contractor), while others occupy government land (and may or may not pay rent). Farm sizes range greatly from 0.3 acres to an outlier of 100 acres; however, in general, the typical total land rented is just under three acres. Tenure also ranges greatly from 1 year to (the same) outlier of 400 years; however, in general, tenure is just over 20 years. Vegetable crops are most common, but we found two areas where roses are the crop of choice, and one area where landscape nurseries were concentrated. Productivity is high enough to support most farmers and their families year round, even during the monsoon season, and few of the people we talked to look for other means of employment in between growing seasons. Here is a list of common crops: gourds (including bottle and bitter gourd), eggplant, okra, corn, pumpkins, cucumber, chillies, lobia (a pulse), spinach, cauliflower, mustard, wheat, rice, other leafy vegetables, tomatoes, melons, watermelon, carrots, and radishes… The in-depth conversations during the pilot study provoked more questions than answers. Why was no one talking about doing anything to protest, resist, or contest land development? What prevented farmers from voicing their concerns? Were they even talking to each other about (what seemed to be imminent) displacement? It was as if the very idea of starting a dialog—among themselves, with city planners, or even directly with developers—was not even on the radar. Surely farmers’ lack of engagement was not an indication of their lack of desire to be included? But in reality, Delhi farmers were not invited to participate in the planning and development of the land they had cultivated for years—some for generations. Those of us in the realm of participatory planning and community development often concern ourselves with who does or does not show up at the table. Yet, in the end, our work is too often shaped by those who do show up, with limited consideration of who is absent. What about those who missed the meeting? What about those who were not invited? A growing body of evidence suggests that social relations play an important role in how people engage or disengage from the civic activities; social relations influence how community members understand and experience planning, whether participatory or top-down in approach. Delhi famers, cultivating the Yamuna River floodplain on small plots close to their farming neighbors and interacting daily with each other, presented an opportune case to explore in-depth social and spatial dimensions of the city environment within the context of planning and land development through their lived experience.

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An excerpt from ‘Urban Agriculture in Delhi, India,’ a research blog, trying to make sense of the data https://urbanagdelhi.wordpress.com/ written by Kate Oviatt, pilot study research team Living for Today: Sustainability and Livelihoods After many months chewing on the information we gathered in Delhi, the question that keeps nagging us is, what part of this, if any, is sustainable? There seems to be a real disconnect between what we read in the literature about urban agriculture and what we saw on the ground with the farmers we worked with. A lot of the literature points towards the potentials of urban agriculture; improved health, use of organic wastes, greening of city spaces, and so on. To be fair, most of the literature is talking about a very different type of urban agriculture (in more affluent, developed areas), but nonetheless, we saw a very different picture on the ground. These were real farmers struggling to make a living. Livelihood requirements trumped anything else. There is a real tension here between the more short-term, immediate decisions that people make for livelihoods and the longer-term strategies required for sustainability. The farmers said themselves that using organic fertilizer was better. They knew that not leaving fields fallow was contributing to loss of production potential. They knew these things; but with land tenure uncertain and the need for immediate income, they relied on methods they knew and that would have a more immediate return. The take-away lesson for us is that people’s livelihoods have to be at the center of any discussion about sustainability and making changes. At a most basic level the need to provide for oneself and one’s family is a major driver of behavior. We need to be able to recognize this tension between short-term livelihood decisions and long-term sustainability goals and forge a path that works with people’s need to provide for their families, but does so in an environmentally and socially conscious way. It was with these thoughts in mind that I walked into the same field two years later—this time of budding broccoli. This book endeavors to authentically report empirical findings and reflection on what I learned about how the Delhi farmers, embedded in the physical environment, were also embedded in multi-layered social

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networks, and how those networks influenced household beliefs and behaviors related to livelihood strategies and their relationship with the land. Jessica Ann Diehl Assistant Professor Landscape Architecture Programme Department of Architecture College of Design and Engineering National University of Singapore Singapore, Singapore

References Mougeot LJ (2000) Urban agriculture: definition, presence, potentials and risks. Growing cities, growing food: urban agriculture on the policy agenda 1:42 Van Veenhizen R (2006) Cities farming for the future: urban agriculture for green and productive cities. In: Van Veenhizen R (ed) RUAF Foundation, IDRC and International Institute for Rural Reconstruction. Leusden, The Netherlands

Acknowledgments

The foundational research that led to this book would not have been possible without generous support from the U.S. National Science Foundation Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (NSF-IGERT) Program. As an NSF-IGERT fellow, I was affiliated with the Center for Sustainable Urban Infrastructure (CSIS) at the University of Colorado Denver directed by Dr. Anu Ramaswami (2009–2013). I recognize and appreciate the scholarship and friendship cultivated by the faculty, staff, and students at CSIS and my home department of Health and Behavioral Sciences. I am grateful for the opportunities and support provided by my dissertation committee chair Dr. Deborah ‘Debbi’ Main, who’s mentorship was authentic, motivating, and empowered me to go down a path I did not know was possible. I am also indebted to committee members Dr. John Brett, Dr. Mallika Bose, Dr. Deb Thomas and Dr. Jeremy Nemeth. Their dedication of time, encouragement, and diverse expertise spanning anthropology, landscape architecture, geography, and urban planning was immense; I have been profoundly changed by them. The fieldwork for this research was jointly funded by the U.S. Dept. of State and the Government of India through a Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship in 2013–2014. It enabled me to meet and learn from a great many people and organizations in Delhi. I thank Dr. Praveen Singh, my advisor at Ambedkar University Delhi, and the administrators and staff at the Fulbright House in Delhi, India. I also thank my research assistants Harpreet Kaur and Priyanka Singh. Harpreet and I remain good friends and continue to work on academic projects together. Special acknowledgement goes to the farmers in Delhi who shared their stories with me and tried to help me understand their experiences. The people I have documented, analyzed, and published in this book will not benefit from this research. They asked me and I told them the truth. Let us talk more about ethics and hegemony in research and urban planning.

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Contents

1

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Part I 2

3

1 4

A Political Ecology Lens

Vulnerable, yet Resilient . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 To Develop or Not to Develop: Land as Contested Urban Resource . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Communities in Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.1 Participatory Planning: Discourse Versus Reality . . . . . 2.2.2 Participation and Representation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.3 Knowledge and Problem-Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Power in Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.1 Power Within, Power Without . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.2 The Disempowered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.3 Social Networks and Decision-Making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Micro–Macro Disconnect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Vulnerability and Resilience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6 Coping and Access to Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.7 Sustainable Livelihoods Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

9 9 12 13 13 15 16 17 19 20 21 22 24 26 28

Whose Land Is This Anyway? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Human Organization Is Not Random, Nor Even . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Political Ecology: The Structural Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Power with a Small “p” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Measuring Power Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.1 Structural Power: What Is Possible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.2 Organizational Power: In What Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.3 Ego-Alter Power: With Whom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.4 Individual-Level Power: Potential to Act . . . . . . . . . . . .

33 33 37 38 40 41 42 43 44

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3.4.5 Livelihood Outcomes: The Outcome of Power . . . . . . . 3.4.6 Ego-Alter Power: In-Depth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Social Networks for Mobilize Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.6 Aggregating and Linking Modes of Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.7 Marginal Land Settlement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.7.1 Pilot Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.7.2 Selecting a Site: Identifying a Community . . . . . . . . . . . 3.7.3 Whose Land Is It Anyway? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.7.4 Yamuna River . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.8 Community Boundaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part II

45 46 47 49 50 52 55 56 59 62 64

Social Networks and Access to Resources

4

Introductions First . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Urban Food System Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Individuals Embedded in Households . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Household Representation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 The Researcher and the Researched . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 Research Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.6 Methodological Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.7 Analysis: Data Limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.8 Coercion, I Mean Compensation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

69 69 74 75 77 80 81 82 83 84

5

Family Dynamic: The Household as a Collective Agent . . . . . . . . . . . 87 5.1 Household Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 5.2 Benefits to Farming the Yamuna Floodplain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 5.3 Physical Capital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 5.4 Natural Capital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 5.5 Land Improvements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 5.6 The Pregnant Woman Who Didn’t Exist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 5.7 Ego-Centric (Household) Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

6

Help Wanted: Laborers as a Social Network Collective . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 Investing, Withdrawing, and Exchanging Resources . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Rural to Urban Migration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 Labor Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

105 107 108 111 114

7

Friends and Frenemies: Other Farmers as a Social Network Collective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1 Farmers’ First Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 The Other Thirty-Four . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3 Within Class Violence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

115 121 122 125

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7.4 Farmer Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 8

9

Buying and Selling: Vendors as a Social Network Collective . . . . . . . 8.1 Negotiating Price . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2 Loans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3 Advice from Vendors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.4 Lack of Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.5 If They Come, Build It…Income Diversification . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.6 Mandis and the Slow-Rapid Rise of the Supermarket in India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.7 The Middle Class Consumer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.8 Vendor Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Seeds and Fertilizer: The Agricultural Industry as a Social Collective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.1 Lalit vs. Goliath: A Small Seed Shop Owner with a Big Clientele . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.2 Researcher and Researched Revisited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.3 Green Revolution (Indian Version) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.4 Industry Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

133 137 139 139 140 140 141 143 145 148 149 152 156 156 160 162

10 Rent or Own? Landlords as a Social Network Collective . . . . . . . . . . 10.1 Rent Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.2 Leasing Arrangements and Preference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.3 Rent Payment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.4 Rent Collection & Landlord’s Residence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.5 Conversation and Advice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.6 Property Improvements and Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.7 Ten Landlords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.8 Tenure, Title, and Identification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.9 Landlord Collective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

165 166 167 168 169 171 172 175 181 186 193

11 The Outsiders: Other Social Network Collectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.1 Who Else and from Where? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2 Discussion, Advice or Assistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.3 IDs: Education, Social Services, and Charity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.4 Health and Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.5 The Priest and the Devout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.6 Politicians and the Right to Vote . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.7 News in All Directions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.8 Other Relation Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

195 196 198 199 200 201 202 203 205 207

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Contents

Part III Solutions without Resolution 12 Land, Knowledge, Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.1 The Catalyst for Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.2 Land Use Change: Beliefs and Behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.3 Knowledge of Land Use Change in Yamuna Khadir . . . . . . . . . . 12.4 Involvement in Land Use Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.5 Perception of Land Use Influence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.6 Potential for Livelihood Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.7 Livelihood Indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.8 Benefits to Farming Along the Yamuna . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.9 Livelihood Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.10 Social Networks and Livelihood Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.11 Land Use Influence and Livelihood Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Patches and Corridors: An Expanded Description of Pathways of Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.1 Social Networks and Resiliency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2 Mimicry: The Case of Weak Social Networks That Appear Advantaged . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3 Isolation: The Case of Self-Reliant Households . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.4 Community: The Case of Strong Community Bonds Without Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.5 Rooted: The Case of Strong Bonds Without Influence . . . . . . . . 13.6 Charity: The Case of Strong Bridges Without Roots . . . . . . . . . . 13.7 Separated: The Case of Weak Community Bonds . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.8 Dependent: The Case of Extrinsic Capital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.9 Many Pathways: The Case of Strong Social Networks and Influence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.10 Entrepreneurs: The Non-Farming Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.11 Everyday Forms of Resistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Urban Food Production as an Embedded Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.1 Changing Land Use and Changing Identities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.2 City Planning and the Citizen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.3 Coping with Natural Hazards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.4 Coping with Development Pressure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.5 Revisiting Small ‘p’ Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.6 Knowledge, Action, Influence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.6.1 Lack of Knowledge: What to Say? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.6.2 Lack of Action: Participation and Representation . . . . . 14.6.3 Lack of Influence: Outside the Decision-Making Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

211 211 213 214 216 217 218 219 220 221 224 225 226 229 229 230 233 234 235 237 238 240 241 243 245 246 247 247 249 251 254 256 258 261 261 262

Contents

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14.7 The Socially Constructed Farmer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263 15 Conclusion: Scaffolding Urban Food Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.1 Embedding Beliefs and Behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.2 Reinforcing Marginalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.3 Community Representation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.4 Future Steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.5 Final Reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

265 266 266 268 269 271 273

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 2.2 Fig. 2.3 Fig. 3.1 Fig. 3.2

Fig. 3.3

Fig. 3.4

Fig. 3.5

Fig. 3.6

Fig. 3.7

Diagram of the human–environment relationship in the context of sustainable planning and development . . . . . . . Pressure and Release Model (Blaikie et al. 1994) . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Sustainable Livelihoods Framework by I. Scoones, adapted by D. Carney (Carney 2003; Scoones 1998) . . . . . . . . . . Map of agriculture on Yamuna River floodplain. Source Google Earth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Structural mode of power overlaid on the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework by I. Scoones, adapted by D. Carney (Carney 2003; Scoones 1998) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Organizational mode of power overlaid on the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework by I. Scoones, adapted by D. Carney (Carney 2003; Scoones 1998) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ego-alter mode of power overlaid on the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework by I. Scoones, adapted by D. Carney (Carney 2003; Scoones 1998) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Individual mode of power overlaid on the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework by I. Scoones, adapted by D. Carney (Carney 2003; Scoones 1998) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Research diagram integrating Wolf’s individual and ego-alter modes of power with Sustainable Livelihoods Framework components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a Urban agriculture with newly constructed apartment buildings in the background; b beneath active construction of a new metro line; c another site where urban agriculture faces newly constructed apartment buildings in the background; d beneath new electricity towers; e urban agriculture “integrated” with newly constructed (waste?) water pipes; f removed from a new “public” (but unpopulated) park . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

22 23 27 36

41

42

43

44

45

51

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Fig. 3.8 Fig. 3.9 Fig. 3.10

Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2

Fig. 4.3 Fig. 5.1 Fig. 5.2 Fig. 5.3

Fig. 5.4 Fig. 6.1 Fig. 7.1 Fig. 7.2 Fig. 7.3 Fig. 7.4 Fig. 8.1 Fig. 8.2 Fig. 9.1 Fig. 9.2

Fig. 10.1 Fig. 10.2 Fig. 10.3 Fig. 11.1 Fig. 12.1 Fig. 12.2

List of Figures

Pilot study context map and interview sites (Cook et al. 2015) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Map of research site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Master Plan 2021 for Delhi showing the Yamuna River floodplain categorized as an ‘urbanisable’ land use (Delhi Development Authority, https://dda.org.in) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Diagram of social network variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Map of farmer and non-farmer distribution. Note Farmer and interview sites were spatially skewed to protect geographic identity of participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Distribution of (a) gender and (b) age of household speaker . . . . Map of migrant origin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Distribution of land size (in Delhi, 6 bigha is approx. 1 acre or 0.4 hectares) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Metro construction and dwelling of farm family with rented plot (Image is illustrative and does not show actual dwelling of family in this narrative) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Distribution of household social network power; strong (1) to weak (6) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Distribution of labor social network power; strong (1) to weak (8) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Image of Yamuna Khadir cultivated landscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tea stall and provisioning shop in Yamuna Khadir . . . . . . . . . . . . Occupations of the Yamuna Khadir community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Distribution of farmer social network power; strong (1) to weak (8) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Markets where crops were sold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Distribution of vendor social network power; strong to weak distal ties (1–4); strong to weak proximal ties (6–9) . . . Map of agricultural supply locations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Distribution of industry social network power; strong to weak proximal ties (1–2; 4–8); strong to weak distal ties (1–4; 6–8) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Distribution of rental rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Map of colonies where landlords were reported to live . . . . . . . . Distribution of landlord social network power; strong (1) to weak (10) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Distribution of other relations social network power; strong (1) to weak (7) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Crops growing post-metro construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Places where farmers said they will look for more land in the future if evicted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

53 56

58 72

75 76 90 91

99 102 113 118 123 123 131 136 148 151

162 167 170 193 207 218 222

List of Tables

Table 5.1 Table 5.2 Table 6.1 Table 6.2 Table 7.1 Table 7.2 Table 7.3 Table 8.1 Table 8.2 Table 8.3 Table 9.1 Table 9.2 Table 10.1 Table 10.2 Table 10.3 Table 11.1 Table 11.2 Table 11.3 Table 12.1 Table 12.2

Table 13.1 Table 13.2

Household social network matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Score guide for characterizing household social network . . . . . Labor social network matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Score guide for characterizing labor social network . . . . . . . . . Informal exchange of money among farmers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Farmer social network matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Score guide for characterizing landlord social network . . . . . . . Field-to-market process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vendor social network matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Score guide for characterizing vendor social network . . . . . . . . Industry social network matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Score guide for characterizing industry social network . . . . . . . Distribution of leasing arrangements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Landlord social network matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Score guide for characterizing landlord social network . . . . . . . List of other people that farmers interacted with inside Yamuna Khadir . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Other relations social network matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Score guide for characterizing other relations social network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reasons given for not being involved in land use activity . . . . . Examples of livelihood strategies of households with strong social structure and households with weak social structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary of household social networks by dimension . . . . . . . Summary of typologies of household ability to access resources through social networks (Diehl et al. 2022) . . . . . . . .

101 102 112 113 117 129 131 134 146 147 161 162 168 187 192 197 206 207 216

224 230 231

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Chapter 1

Introduction

Abstract This introductory chapter provides a broad overview of the contents of the book, which is based on an in-depth case study of marginalized urban farmers in Delhi facing land development. Taking a political ecology approach, the study explored how power relationships impacted farmers’ planning participation and livelihood strategies. The book is divided into three parts. Part I covers the big topics: theory, definitions, and discourse around vulnerable and marginalized groups through the lens of political ecology translated to the urban context. Part II introduces the research context and situates it in the topic of urban food systems. Social networks and access to resources are described, organized by relational collectives: the different types of people farmers might interact with as part of their livelihoods. Part III digs deeper through an expanded description of different types of social networks to consider how power in household social networks operates as a pattern of patches and corridors. The book concludes by re-visiting and linking together the diverse and fragmented parts of the Yamuna farmers’ stories into a scaffolding for future directions for inquiry and policy related to localized urban food systems. Keywords Marginalized urban farmers · Delhi urbanization · Informal settlements · Sustainable planning and development · Eric Wolf · Power relations · Political ecology Informal settlements, vast health disparities, and environmental degradation plague Delhi. The root causes can be found in the complex historic and political structures and an anti-poor bias that persists despite a poor majority. Paradoxically, “the interventions deployed [in Delhi] to render poverty invisible do not diminish poverty, but create new places and positions for poor people” (Rao 2010). Rao links this to a pervasive informal economy employing 80% of the working population. If you have visited the city of Delhi, you were surely confronted with cycle rickshaw drivers, chai wallas, and roving sabzi vegetable carts. Even brick-and-mortar shops are not necessarily licensed. In this exponentially growing mega-city, the challenges of employment seem insurmountable. But that does not mean options are non-existent. How, then, can livelihoods be validated within the larger political economic context to create a more sustainable and inclusive city? © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. A. Diehl, Grown in Delhi, Cities and Nature, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26380-4_1

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1 Introduction

The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) recognizes community participation as an essential component of sustainable planning and development (Motasim et al. 2010). “Participatory planning empowers communities and results in better design outcomes that are more responsive to the diverse needs of the different urban groups. Participation also ensures the relevance of plans when faced with limited resources and can also increase effectiveness” (UN-Habitat 2010). But the challenges to engaging communities are multiple including the potential for conflict and mistrust, lack of authority or dominant voice, and achieving adequate representation (Irvin and Stansbury 2004; Maginn 2007). Communities— often assumed to have common interests and goals—are instead dynamic, multicultural entities, representing many voices. Furthermore, presence is not the same as participation—a community member may attend planning meetings but not feel that they have a voice. On the other hand, participation or influence may come indirectly through representation. Individuals are socially embedded, and inclusion can come from the perception that actions or outcomes of the group are aligned with one’s values via representation. Social relations play an important role in how community members experience participation and representation and, consequently, engage or disengage from the process. However, the mechanisms underlying interactions among people that influence beliefs and behaviors related to participation are not well understood (Beebeejaun and Vanderhoven 2010; Brownill and Parker 2010; Yates 2012). Without addressing the issue of power among different stakeholders, frameworks like that presented by UN-Habitat may fall short in practice (Dupont 2007). Equally important to participatory planning is the need to understand why poor and marginalized populations may not perceive a benefit in engaging in the planning process. They can appear indifferent to the institutional systems in which they are embedded. In setting the agenda for meeting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), United Nations Member States focus on issues of climate change and urbanization to develop benchmark targets, but communities are more concerned with daily activities and livelihoods. When authorities invite public feedback, they assume that the people: first, acknowledge the problem as presented by the authorities as a problem, second, agree that it is a problem requiring resolution, and third, are motivated to address it. This expectation is idealistic. To gain insight into how power relations and social networks impact the participatory planning process, I took a step inside a marginalized group of urban farmers cultivating the Yamuna River floodplain in Delhi, India. I used a livelihoods approach to capture formal and informal spaces and found that households were not equally disadvantaged. I found that they could lack power at the structural and organizational levels, but manifest agency through their social relations and intrinsic capabilities in pursuit of meeting daily needs. In this book, I offer a humble contribution to our understanding of public participation by expanding the knowledge of why some populations may be more challenging to engage—perhaps to even reach— than others. More specifically, I examine power relations both inside and outside the planning process by describing multiple ways that power relations can impact agency within a community and in the planner-public nexus. I also attempt to, and to a degree

1 Introduction

3

succeed at, operationalizing power as an inherent quality of social networks. I deal with power as a multiple, complex, multi-level phenomenon embedded in everyday activities. The contents of this book are based on an in-depth case study of marginalized farmers facing land development to explore how power relationships impact their planning participation and livelihood strategies. Using a mixed-methods approach, I conducted semi-structured interviews over the course of a year with 165 households living and cultivating land in one discrete area of the Yamuna River floodplain. My first aim was to describe how the farmers exchanged knowledge and resources through their social networks, a Herculean task in and of itself. Next, I investigated their beliefs and behaviors related to land development and urban planning. Finally, I asked about their livelihood strategies in the case the land was developed and they were evicted. Taking a political ecology approach, I applied cultural anthropologist Eric Wolf’s theories of power as a lens to interpret the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework and social network theory to operationalize the framework. This research expands on Wolf’s theory of power as a multiple and complex phenomenon pervasive, but working differently, across multiple levels of human interaction. I also demonstrate how a deep measure of social network relations can illuminate who is vulnerable, who is resilient, and ways of coping in a high risk context. Finally, I provide reflections on social, environmental, and economic conditions in an attempt to move toward problematizing rather than converging toward a conclusion—because I do not want you, the reader, to think this work is complete or finished in any way. The research narrated through these pages was an academic assignment in the form of a doctoral dissertation, but I aim to offer insights into how marginalized groups navigate the urban context. I further draw conclusions for the urban food system, and tease out implications for how cities and planning agencies can work toward solutions to mitigate climate change impacts at the city-level (macro-level), while at the same time strengthen livelihood strategies of marginalized populations (micro-level). This book is divided into three parts. Part I covers the big topics: theory, definitions, and discourse around vulnerable and marginalized groups. Political ecology serves as the frame. What is political ecology? It is a “theoretical commitment to critical social theory and a post-positivist understanding of nature and the production of knowledge about it, which views these as inseparable from social relations of power…[it is] a methodological commitment to in-depth, direct observation involving qualitative research of some sort, often in combination with quantitative methods and/or document analysis…[and, it is] a normative political commitment to social justice and structural political change…[highlighting] the struggles, interests, and plight of marginalized populations” (Perreault et al. 2015). Aligned with this, I reach across disciplines of sociology, anthropology, geography, urban planning, and environmental sciences to describe pertinent theory and research in the areas of participatory planning, vulnerability and resiliency, and social network research. Part II introduces the research context and situates it in the topic of urban food systems. In this section, I summarize findings from the interviews with Delhi farmers triangulated with other supporting evidence. I describe social networks and access to

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1 Introduction

resources organized by relational collectives. These comprise the different types of people farmers might interact with as part of their livelihoods: hired laborers, vendors, other farmers, etc. An attempt is made to quantify power in relations. Power relations are contextualized against broader social-political contexts. Part III is my approach toward drawing conclusions: solutions without resolution. I dig deeper through an expanded description of different types of social networks using an ecological concept: I consider how power in household social networks operates as a pattern of patches and corridors. In this section, I further link social network power to household land development beliefs and behaviors and livelihood strategies. With this multidimensional narrative of the Yamuna farmers, I relate findings to the larger issues of urban food production as a practice embedded in changing land use patterns, natural hazards, uneven distribution of knowledge, and the social construction of the farmer as a denizen of the city. The book concludes by re-visiting and linking together the diverse and fragmented parts of the Yamuna farmers’ stories into a scaffolding for future directions for inquiry and policy related to localized urban food systems. My narrative of Delhi farmers is unique, specific, and not without gaps, but it hints at a universal story—a universal experience—of urban farmers and marginalized people in cities living in the global north and south (I use these terms to acknowledge the geography of colonization). When I consented farmers during the interview process, several asked me: Why do you want to know about us? Each time, I hesitated in the reality that my research was unlikely to improve or even mitigate the plight of these Delhi farmers. Instead, like all good researchers who have dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s of a humansubjects research ethics application approved by the relevant Institutional Review Board (IRB), I coached my research assistant to translate, “This study is important because many cities around the world are thinking about how to plan and develop in a way that is socially and environmentally responsible. We can understand technically how the environment works, but we don’t really understand how people work within their environment. This project can help cities understand that development must understand and engage the people that are dependent on the land for their livelihoods.” Whether or not they agreed or even grasped the implication, my research assistant and I were almost always offered a seat and the farmer’s full attention.

References Beebeejaun Y, Vanderhoven D (2010) Informalizing participation: insights from Chicago and Johannesburg. Plan Pract Res 25:283–296 Brownill S, Parker G (2010) Why bother with good works? The relevance of public participation(s) in planning in a post-collaborative era. Plan Pract Res 25:275–282 Dupont V (2007) Conflicting stakes and governance in the peripheries of large Indian metropolises: an introduction. Cities 24:89–94 Irvin RA, Stansbury J (2004) Citizen participation in decision making: is it worth the effort? Public Adm Rev 64:55–65

References

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Maginn PJ (2007) Towards more effective community participation in urban regeneration: the potential of collabortive planning and applied ethnography. Qual Res 7:25–43 Motasim H, Rae K, Andersson C, Auclair C, Barth B, Buhren K, Candiracci S, Dahiya B, Dercon B, Gachocho M, Galezia K, Hossain M, Kadhim M, Kishiue A, Materu J, Muhoro T, Mwaura J, Njenga C, Sommer K, Miller E, Petrella L, Precht R, Radford C, Ruijsink S, Seaforth W, Sietchiping R (2010) Planning sustainable cities: UN-Habitat practices and perspectives. UNHabitat, Nairobi Perreault TA, Bridge G, Mccarthy J (2015) The Routledge handbook of political ecology. Routledge, London Rao U (2010) Making the global city: urban citizenship at the margins of Delhi. Ethos 75:402–424 UN-HABITAT (2010) Planning sustainable cities: UN-HABITAT practices and perspectives. United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), Nairobi Yates JS (2012) Uneven interventions and the scalar politics of governing livelihood adaptation in rural Nepal. Glob Environ Chang 22:537–546

Part I

A Political Ecology Lens

Part I uses the frame of political ecology to cover the big topics: theory, definitions, and discourse around vulnerable and marginalized groups. The discourse around political ecology agrees that it is a “theoretical commitment to critical social theory and a post-positivist understanding of nature and the production of knowledge about it, which views these as inseparable from social relations of power…[it is] a methodological commitment to in-depth, direct observation involving qualitative research of some sort, often in combination with quantitative methods and/or document analysis…[and, it is] a normative political commitment to social justice and structural political change…[highlighting] the struggles, interests, and plight of marginalized populations” (Perreault et al., 2015). In an attempt to follow these rules, I reach across disciplines spanning sociology, anthropology, geography, urban planning, and environmental and behavioral sciences to describe pertinent theory and research in the areas of participatory planning, vulnerability and resiliency, and social network research.

Reference Perreault TA, Bridge G, & Mccarthy J (2015) The Routledge handbook of political ecology. Routledge, London

Chapter 2

Vulnerable, yet Resilient

Abstract Achieving sustainability targets (SGDs) often come at the cost of hidden places and people. What can city planners learn from the behaviors of affected individuals and communities as they respond and adapt to city-scale improvements to mitigate climate change? This chapter provides an introduction to theory, definitions, and discourse around vulnerable and marginalized groups contextualized through the case study of Delhi Farmers. Community participation is an important aspect of sustainable planning and development, but there is a persistent chasm between the rhetoric of public participation and the reality of engaging and empowering communities. It describes zero-sum to generative forms of power and the need to uncover how and why it manifests in the planning process. Conflicts are often rooted in a micro– macro disconnect; while government organizations focus on issues of climate change and urbanization, communities are more often concerned with daily activities and livelihoods. Sustainable planning and development frequently target areas that are degraded or prone to natural hazards—places poor and marginalized groups often inhabit. To gain an understanding of the larger picture, and why marginalized groups are likely to inhabit the places sustainable planning and development frequently target, it is helpful to look to human geography and cultural anthropology for theories, frameworks, and models of vulnerability and resilience. Concepts of coping and access to resources are introduced and the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework, which emerged from the political ecology discourse, is described. Keywords Participatory planning · Stakeholder power · Marginalized urban populations · Delhi urbanization · Political ecology · Vulnerability and resilience · Sustainable Livelihoods Framework · Yamuna River floodplain · Environmental degradation · Social networks

2.1 To Develop or Not to Develop: Land as Contested Urban Resource In the summer of 2011, I was part of a research team that undertook preliminary fieldwork to explore urban agriculture in Delhi, India (Cook et al. 2015). Our questions were exploratory and straightforward: Where is urban agriculture occurring in Delhi? © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. A. Diehl, Grown in Delhi, Cities and Nature, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26380-4_2

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What are the practices? What are the benefits and barriers? We found farmers’ issues in the urban context to be less straightforward—instead they were systemic and far-reaching, influenced by often-conflicting social, environmental, and economic tensions. As we traversed the Yamuna River floodplain, the most immediate issue raised by farmers was a general sentiment of impending development and plans to remove them. A sentiment of apathy struck me as odd at the time in that farmers did not engaged with nor have interest in negotiating with planning authorities. In the early pilot study, we only talked to 35 farmers over a four week period, but I was intrigued that every farmer said something different about what they would do in the event that the land was developed and they could no longer farm. At the time, the Yamuna River floodplain was, and continues to, undergo infrastructure improvements ranging from metro construction to water and sewage treatment facilities. But, with each urban issue addressed, i.e., transportation, energy, water, another seemed to be created: food insecurity, increased flooding. Farmers who had previously been displaced from rural agricultural lands were now being displaced from urban agricultural lands. It was a problem caused by a solution: reduced local food production in exchange for, in one example, expanded wastewater treatment. Achieving city and country specific climate change and urbanization related benchmarks (in an attempt to meet United Nations SDGs) often come at the cost of hidden places and people. What can city planners learn from the behaviors of affected individuals and communities as they respond and adapt to city-scale improvements to mitigate climate change? I do not make an idealistic plea to stop development; rather, my motivation is to shed light on how marginalized groups in society—specifically, in this case, those who grow our food—find ways to cope and adapt to changes in the urban environment that impact their lives and livelihoods. I draw attention to the urban conditions that spur such disempowered and vulnerable (i.e. invisible) groups to create spaces and share resources across their social networks through informal means—often in the pursuit of sustaining livelihoods through reliable and consistent means to meet daily needs. To begin, let me set the broader context: Delhi is the second largest megacity in the world, home to approximately 28 million people, and growing exponentially.1 ,2 Urbanization has led to steeply rising food prices due to greater food transport distances as development of urban and peri-urban land pushes agriculture farther from the city. Urbanization has resulted in severe pollution of the Yamuna River, the primary water source for the city, and construction of unauthorized residential structures that are particularly susceptible to increasingly extreme annual monsoon events. The Yamuna River has been undergoing extensive environmental clean-up

1

United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs website: http://www.un.org/en/dev elopment/desa/news/population/world-urbanization-prospects-2014.html accessed 8/29/14. 2 In 2012, when the proposal for this dissertation was written, Delhi was the fifth largest megacity with a population of 23 million.

2.1 To Develop or Not to Develop: Land as Contested Urban Resource

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and riverside development, controversial but inevitable. To do this requires restriction of agricultural uses on the floodplain, which is an important source of food and livelihoods for local farmers and adjacent residential neighborhoods. Questions that emerged from the pilot study were: Why are farmers cultivating a disaster-prone landscape? Why is development proposed on such an ecologically sensitive place? And, who actually owns the land? In brief, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) currently manages the city-owned land comprising the Yamuna River floodplain, but this was not always the case. In 1949, the Delhi Improvement Trust allotted more than 5,000 acres of land comprising the Yamuna River floodplain to the Delhi Peasants Cooperative Multipurpose Society (DPCMS). The DPCMS parcelled out the land to members (membership acquired with a small fee), thereby giving them the right to cultivate the land.3 The year was significant because it corresponded with British Independence in 1947, and the action was significant because it gave the people (many already occupying the land) the responsibility to care for—and profit from—a large area of land the new government did not have a budget or resources to maintain. As a result, the government was able to attend to and fund other more pressing urban issues like housing and sanitation. At the time, it was a win–win situation. The DDA was created in 1957 in response to rapid population growth—the city had grown from 1.37 million people to 1.97 million in less than a decade (Delhi Development Authority 2012)! The DDA’s primary task was and still is to create and approve development plans in accordance with an approved and regularly updated city-level Master Plan. In 1991, the DDA became the successor of the Delhi Improvement Trust and, consequently, the authority of the Yamuna River floodplain. The DDA’s current (at the time of this research) Master Plan for Delhi 2021 is to make Delhi a global metropolis and a world-class city, where all the people are engaged in productive work with a better quality of life, living in a sustainable environment. However, as the amount of land available for development in and around Delhi has decreased and, consequently, inflated in value, the ‘empty’ fields of the Yamuna floodplain have attracted the attention of land developers (Prashar et al. 2012). This is despite the annual monsoon inundation of the land with highly polluted water—the Yamuna is highly polluted. Well, the DDA is tasked with prioritizing development projects, affecting multiple stakeholders. And, although the DDA has a policy in place for community engagement in development projects, historically, it has fallen short on public inclusion (Ahmad et al. 2013; Datta and Jha 1983; Rao 2010). To further complicate matters, in regards to the Yamuna River floodplain, the farmers are not considered stakeholders. Conceptually, planner-public conflicts, such in this case of Delhi, are not just about the allocation and use of land, facilities, and other resources; they are also about relationships, which involve personality, politics, race, ethnicity and culture (Sandercock 2003). Sustainable planning and development is the process of working 3

There is limited documentation on the Delhi Peasants Multipurpose Cooperative Society. The background provided in this paper is based on reviews of court rulings over land disputes between the DDA and various Yamuna River Floodplain tenants.

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toward economic, ecologic, and social sustainability.4 But, as cities attempt to meet SGDs in the face of urbanization, population growth, and climate change, the greatest challenges are not in technical solutions but in addressing power dynamics underlying social relationships within and across multiple stakeholders. Stakeholders are defined as the individuals and groups who can affect or be affected by the problem at hand. This includes the public, which means public inclusion, specifically the affected communities, will influence the sustainability of solutions.

2.2 Communities in Planning Community participation is an important aspect of sustainable planning and development, but there is a persistent chasm between the rhetoric of public participation and the reality of engaging and empowering communities. Inclusion of every stakeholder is rarely possible, and the nature of representation—or who is acting on behalf of whom—has been an important topic in academia and in practice. Representation can enable agency and empowerment of excluded or marginalized groups, but power relations often bias who is deemed appropriate to participate as well as who actually shows up to participate. Power relations impact the equitable distribution of knowledge and create a divide between who is involved in problem-setting versus problem-solving—an important distinction in determining the scope of possible solutions. The myriad issues and consequences related to urbanization, population growth, and climate change require prioritization that is often fraught with conflict. Cities, particularly those in developing countries, face problems of poverty, exclusion, insecurity, and environmental degradation, and have looked to urban planning to combat some of these ills (Motasim et al. 2010). But urbanization is not just a technical challenge; it involves a social transformation (Roberts and Kanaley 2010). Urban planning has traditionally been used to regulate the production and use of space, often reflecting the dominant culture and driven by the affluent and politically powerful (Sandercock 2003). The concept of community engagement is not new in the planning literature; however, there is a persistent concern as to why it has had such limited success and how to improve its impact moving forward (Brownill and Parker 2010; Manta conroy 2011).

4

The World Commission on Environment and Development states that “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” is the foundation for creating sustainable cities (The World Commission on Environment and Development 1987).

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2.2.1 Participatory Planning: Discourse Versus Reality The discourse on participatory planning has a history that dates back to the 1960s (Brownill and Parker 2010; Davidoff 1965). The many benefits to engaging communities in the planning and development process include increased democracy, mobilization of resources and energy, education, more holistic and integrated approaches, better decisions, environmental management, and empowering people (Heritage and Dooris 2009; Holman 2008; Irvin and Stansbury 2004). Participation is about communities having decision-making power over resources that affect the community and incorporating local knowledge in the planning process (Bailey 2010; Swapan 2013). A number of typologies have been developed that describe different types of participation. Probably most well-known is Arnstein’s ladder of participation developed in the 1960s, which describes a spectrum with control by authorities on one end and control by the people or citizens on the other (Cornwall 2008). The debate is not whether to include participation, but when and how, as idealized views of participation are rarely reflected in practice, a point of widespread criticism (Brownill and Parker 2010; Laurian and Shaw 2009; Monno and Khakee 2012; Neef and Neubert 2010; Sultana 2009). In reality, there are many challenges to successful community participation including the potential for conflict and mistrust, lack of adequate representation, and absence of authority or lack of dominant voice (Irvin and Stansbury 2004; Maginn 2007). Two problematic assumptions underpin participatory planning practice: First, is the assumption that community members have equal access and motivation to participate. To understand the first assumption, we need to ask: who is participating and why? The second assumption—linked closely to the first—is that the public will view the problem at hand through the planner’s lens, dis-embedded from personal agendas. To understand the second assumption, it is important to consider the nature of knowledge and problem-setting versus problem-solving.

2.2.2 Participation and Representation Let me begin with the first assumption related to who is participating and why. Having a greater number of participating community members does not mean their greater influence in the planning process. Those who self-select to participate may disproportionately represent those who are in agreement with the problem at hand or, conversely, passionately disagree and want to make their views known. Those who do not participate may do so not out of apathy, but because they do not believe their opinions will be valued, do not feel they have a right to participate, or do not understand the proposed project (Cornwall 2008; McAlister 2010). This presents a challenge for planners in identifying collective voice. On the other hand, presence and inclusion are not the same as participation; a person may attend community meetings but not feel that he or she has a voice.

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Empirical evidence dispels the idea that increasing formal participation options, e.g., town meetings, public workshops, mail-in surveys, etc., also increases benefits to the community, and that inclusion of communities automatically leads to more democratic and sustainable outcomes (Illsley and Coles 2009; Manta conroy 2011). Simply creating an invited space for participation does not necessarily make conflicts disappear; inter-group conflicts can be suppressed in the participatory process when those in opposition are either not included or exclude themselves (Beard and Cartmill 2007; Holman 2008; Sultana 2009). The concept of agency in participatory planning is central to the democratic nature of the participatory process. Agency can be defined as “what a person is free to do and achieve in pursuit of whatever goals or values he or she regards as important” (Sen 1985). Translated into participatory planning, where communities exhibit some level of decision-making power over resources that affect them, agency is not simply measured as the act of participating—especially if the means or options available to participate do not align with an individual’s goals. By the same token, it is not only through participation that agency can occur. Individuals are socially embedded, and agency can come from the perception that actions or outcomes of the group are congruent with one’s values (Peris et al. 2012). Put another way, agency can come through representation, vis-a-vis indirect participation, when an individual feels that others are speaking or acting how he or she would. There are many reasons that individuals may not be able to directly participate such as lack of time, financial limitations, cultural norms or other constraints, and so representation becomes an important means for agency. But who is acting on behalf of whom? Communities are rarely uniform; they are more often dynamic, multi-cultural entities, with many voices (Panelli and Welch 2005; Snodgrass et al. 2008). Even defining community can be difficult because community boundaries and members can change and shift depending on the issue or point of focus (Lyons et al. 2001). Without a clear understanding of the multiple voices within and across communities, we cannot rely on representation in the planning process to reflect varying perspectives and goals. Beebeejaun and Vanderhoven (2010) argue that the nature of representation must be assessed—particularly as cities begin to address large scale issues of climate change and urbanization through sustainable planning and development. The scale of impact is increasingly beyond the confines of one community, and that makes community participation even more challenging when the ‘community’ may include hundreds of thousands of people or more. Participation at such a broad scale necessarily moves into the realm of representation, and inequities of power among participants can be considerable in large-scale projects (Pickering and Minnery 2012). Planning authorities might deem their project successful based on participation and community turnout without questioning the role of power in determining whose voices were actually represented. This can be particularly problematic in the case of top-down approaches where little to no decision-making power is actually transferred to the public. Given the diversity, size, and difficulty in defining communities, full participation leading to consensus is impractical (Melcher 2013). Yet, power inequities often

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lead to representation that reflects only the dominant groups. While age, gender, and wealth are predictors of individual participation (Beebeejaun and Vanderhoven 2010), connections through social networks have been shown to increase representation of women, the young and old, and poor in the participation process (Mdee 2008). Participation and representation have the potential to allow those commonly excluded or marginalized a space for agency (Connelly 2010). This point has important implications because if representation can capture many different voices—particularly those most vulnerable or hard to reach—then participatory planning should focus more on improving the quality of representation, ensuring diversity of voices, and less on the quantity of participation, i.e., simply more voices.

2.2.3 Knowledge and Problem-Setting Closely tied to the challenge of representation and identifying who is included in the discussion is the issue of framing. The public has multiple personal agendas…and goals and values, which impact the ability to consider the problem as framed through the planner’s lens. This phenomenon concerns the nature of knowledge. There are multiple ways of conceptualizing knowledge including expert, scientific, local, indigenous, and situated knowledges. Knowledge frames how humans understand and experience the social and physical environment, and it impacts decision-making and behavior. Knowledge often varies across individuals and social groups (Meusburger 2008). Meusburger (2008) posits that one of the primary causes of variation in the distribution of knowledge is power asymmetry. Knowledge is not equally held. Yet planners tend to assume that communities either share the planners’ knowledge or can be given that knowledge and will come to the same conclusion about resource use. This can, and often does, lead to power struggles and conflict. Power relations impact the participatory process, but conflict per se is not necessarily a negative feature in local government and community engagement. It may in fact lead to better solutions if it is aptly mediated through deliberation (Brownill and Parker 2010). Unfortunately, invited formal spaces for community engagement often become spaces for diffusion of conflict and legitimization of the status quo rather than places of true deliberation (Eguren 2008; Newman 2008). In the planning literature, methods for community engagement primarily focus on maximizing participation through a top-down approach, which is not necessarily a criticism as it is a practitioner-focused approach (Baker et al. 2007; Mahjabeen et al. 2008). However, while anthropology and geography discourse has acknowledged a view of cultural and geographic heterogeneity across society for quite some time, the planning literature still tends to homogenize communities as the ‘public’ in a plannerpublic dichotomy. There persists a valuing of expert (planner) knowledge over lay (public) knowledge (Monno and Khakee 2012). It is not uncommon for the ‘expert’ to set the problem, invite the designated ‘public’ to provide some pre-determined level of input, and choose the ‘correct’ solution based on ‘expert’ interpretation.

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Excluding the public in problem-setting is risky in that community members may not perceive a benefit in participating in problem-solving or they might not even find the topic relevant—because knowledge is not singular but rather heterogeneous. An increased effort to reach out to community members is still often met with low participation rates when planners neglect to frame the topic in a way that is relevant to community members. This can persist despite planners’ efforts to motivate community members to participate by trying different formats for outreach (mail-in surveys, etc.) (Manta conroy 2011). Studies that provide informal means of participating, e.g., unplanned interaction at a local food market, suggest that within-group dynamics, or power relations, have a greater influence on participation than outreach format, e.g., mail-in versus online survey (Beebeejaun and Vanderhoven 2010; Daniere et al. 2005). When planners create a forum for participation, it often stays within the realm of problem-solving (Monno and Khakee 2012). The crucial mistake of limiting public influence to problem-solving is that if the public is included after the problem has been defined, planners have already imposed control over the scope of possible outcomes: “Problem-setting, which is a necessary condition for technical problem-solving, is not itself a technical problem…When we set the problem, we impose upon it a coherence that allows us to say what is wrong and what needs changing” (Sandercock 2003). In other words, problem-setting is imbued with value. Sandercock’s differentiation between phronesis and techne calls our attention to the distinction between participatory methods that are inclusive at the problem-setting stage versus exclusionary until the problem-solving stage. Planners recognize the need for participatory approaches that rely more on layperson or indigenous knowledges during problem-setting. Planning and development can, then, be understood as a socially constructed process of meaning creation and sense-making of the built environment through interactions between the agency of participants (Peris et al. 2012). There are many methods for shifting the planner-public nexus of power. But power-relations continue to impact the process of community participation and development outcomes particularly when planning ‘problems’ concern larger and less well-defined populations.5

2.3 Power in Planning Let us dig a little deeper into the concepts of power and dis/empowerment in the context of participatory planning. Despite many concerted and well-intentioned efforts by planners to shift power to the public, planners often still make final decisions. And, more importantly, hold the power to define who qualifies as the ‘public’ in

5

The mechanisms through which participation occurs is not the primary focus of this dissertation, and hence not explored in detail. The author acknowledges a significant body of literature that is not mentioned here including work by Patsy Healey, David Godschalk, Judith Innes, and John Forrester among others.

2.3 Power in Planning

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the first place. It is, thus, important to contrast the spaces that are created through invitations to participate and those that people create for themselves (Cornwall 2008). It is in the self-created, often informal, spaces where disempowered and marginalized groups are found negotiating power through social connections established there, often in the pursuit of sustaining livelihoods through reliable and consistent means to meet daily needs. What is the potential for social connections to tie them to more formal planning spaces? How does representation manifest agency? Participatory planning requires a better understanding of representation and how knowledge and problem framing mould the planning process and product of city sustainability. To narrow the divide between participatory planning discourse and reality requires an uncovering of the ways in which power relations act as a mechanism in driving the flow of knowledge and resources in supporting or undermining agency not just in the planner-pubic nexus but within affected communities themselves. Let us look at a more nuanced description of power and further differentiate between power and empowerment.

2.3.1 Power Within, Power Without There is little agreement about the nature or meaning of power (Barrett 2002). However, it is generally accepted that at the most basic level, power is a measure of one’s ability to control the environment including other’s behaviors, and can be potential or actualized (Lukes 1978). In other words, I can do something to exhibit my power, but I do not have to do something to have the power to do something. Furthermore, I can make you do something, but I do not have to make you do something to have the power to make you do it. Actualized power manifests into action, making it more easily observed. But potential power is tricky because it is hard to confirm it exists until it manifests in action. How do I know I have the power to make you do something until you actually do it? And if you do something, is it because I have the power to make you do it or because you also want to do it? Is potential power equally powerful lying in wait as actualized power? Without a more critical unpacking of the concept of power, we are limited to acknowledging power’s presence without a means to change, negate, or resist it (Barrett 2002). In short, power in the abstract is not useful for explaining its presence; it can only be analyzed in the context of action: human interaction. Power plays a key role in participatory planning, and it can occur at multiple levels—from problem setting and problem solving to defining invited spaces and validating who is actually heard. Top-down approaches to community engagement put the negotiation of power between the planner and public. It is at this organizational level of power where the planner controls the setting or invited space. In contrast, bottom-up approaches shift power into the community. The intention of shifting power into the community is that it can create an opportunity space for empowerment. Empowerment happens when impoverished or marginalized individuals or groups can imagine their world differently and make that vision a reality by changing the

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relations of power that have been keeping them from reaching that potential (Eyben et al. 2008). Empowerment theory is based on a conflict model; it assumes society is comprised of different groups that have different levels of power and control over resources (Heritage and Dooris 2009). More than just opening access to decisionmaking in the planning process, i.e., agency through direct participation or indirectly through representation, empowerment is itself a process that leads people to perceive themselves as able and entitled to be part of the decision-making space (Rowlands 1995). Agency in the planning process is embodied in the individual but embedded in social relations (de Haan 2012), which is where the potential for empowerment lies. Put another way, agency is the ability to act in accordance with one’s beliefs and values, but empowerment is the ability to change the structures that inhibit action and shape those beliefs and values. Agency is engagement in problem-solving and empowerment is engagement in problem-setting. The process of empowerment has the potential to have far-reaching impact on creating a more equitable planning process and the long-term sustainability of planning outcomes. The problem with empowerment is that power, by definition, cannot be bestowed upon another. One can gain or lose power, but one cannot give power. The notion of power as a zero-sum, or power over something or someone, leaves little opportunity for empowerment. But power does not only manifest as a subtractive element in which one person gains power when another loses power; it can also manifest as a generative element in which one person gains and another person also gains or remains neutral. Generative power is exhibited as power with, power to, and power within (Eyben et al. 2008; Rowlands 1995). Planners can cooperate with communities to create conditions necessary to increase power through capacity building, related to the concepts of power to and power within, and enabling social action (power with), but transfer of power is not a given (Heritage and Dooris 2009). A considerable risk in attempting to shift power from authorities to the local-level through bottom-up approaches is that it merely transfers power from elites at a higher level to elites at a local level and does not benefit the community equally (Khanal 2007; Saito-Jensen and Nathan 2011). It may be a case where there is merely a shift in who has power over the issue at hand. To ensure adoption and implementation of strategies by communities, it is first necessary to identify existing power relationships before engaging communities in participatory work (Mercer et al. 2008). An important limitation in the planning discourse is the often one-dimensional discussion of power. The focus has been on who has the power to make the decision. Although above touches upon dimensions of power and power-empowerment, power is typically conceptualized at the structural-level, which concerns political, economic, and social contexts (see for examples, Brownill and Carpenter 2007; Kesby 2007; Pelling and High 2005). Frequently cited Michael Foucault theorized how knowledge and power organize society. Foucault saw power as a complex phenomenon going beyond the structural realm into everyday activities, but his conceptualization of power was as a singular phenomenon. Foucault’s exploration of power, while invigorating in discourse, has limited utility in explaining how power works concurrently inside and outside a particular context. Such interactions seem to matter profoundly, and are an important reason to move beyond Foucault.

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Recognizing power relations within the participatory process is clearly not enough to develop strategies to reduce inequalities. In other words, acknowledging that power is present is not the same as uncovering and being able to address why or how it is present. Collaborative planning is often influenced by power, but how power is negotiated impacts the potential for empowerment. There is a need to understand how a community’s social structure impacts collective capacity to participate in and influence the planning process (Holman 2008). This critical shift has started as planners debate the opportunities for democracy against the ‘subsumption of rationality to power’ (Brownill and Carpenter 2007). This means creating space for more inclusive and earlier deliberation not limited to expert knowledge in the planning process. Studies examining the role of power within communities in the context of participatory planning outcomes are often limited in scope. Power negotiation occurs inside the formal planning arena, but it also happens outside it. Informal connections have the potential to provide agency to those outside the arena through representation by those actively participating inside it. And, higher levels of informal participation through social capital might be more effective in achieving community goals than formal means because of the increased level of social integration—where members negotiate varying beliefs, values and norms to produce a shared way of understanding (Beebeejaun and Vanderhoven 2010; Daniere et al. 2005). But how does power negotiation work in or through social relations? How does power shift within relationships? And how does it impact knowledge, perceptions, and behavior? These are some of the important questions underlying this book and the cases presented in Part II.

2.3.2 The Disempowered Participatory planning begins with a shift of power from a top-down planner-public approach toward a bottom-up within-community approach. By shifting power into the community, a space is made for agency and empowerment. But the shift is limited when planners define community boundaries and who counts as a legitimate participant (Connelly 2010). And, when planners offer a means to participate but people do not show up it is construed as apathy or having nothing to contribute (McAlister 2010). By contrasting invited spaces with those that people create for themselves, we start to see how agency-power-empowerment can interact in ways that produce disengagement from participation. Unfortunately, particularly in the case of marginalized groups, disengagement can reinforce exclusion and perpetuate power inequality. Stigmatization and discrimination further interfere with the ability of poor and marginalized groups to actualize agency through social relations. Agency is embedded in social relations, but when social relations undermine agency, it may become necessary for marginalized groups to find other pathways to power. Power relations are often oversimplified without an examination people’s daily strategies of living in a way that highlights their perceptions about obtaining resources

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through social relationships. In a study by Parizeau (2015), a group of informal recyclers in Buenos Aires leveraged social and material assets to sustain their livelihoods. Social relations can provide access to various tangible and intangible resources, but the poor cannot or do not always turn to them. In the pursuit of viable livelihoods, the recyclers were often faced with discrimination from mainstream residents, which limited their ability access resources like health care, education and police services. Parizeau suggested that stigma represented a vulnerability to cultivating human capital. Poverty and marginalization can act to regulate and restrict how agency is exercised and social relationships are established (Nygren and MyattHirvonen 2009). For example, lack of human capital can constrain participation by recent migrants into a new host society, restricting or preventing livelihood opportunities where social ties could be established (Wong 2008). In such instance, migrants might internalize norms of conflict avoidance to cope with everyday hostilities. The establishment of social relations only as a means to meeting daily needs can severely limit the ability of poor and marginalized groups to gain access to invited participatory spaces. The potential for local mobilization is dependent on the interconnectedness of residents in specific geographic locales; it impacts how individuals and communities place value on their environment, are compelled to act, and further expand their social networks (Daniere et al. 2002). Marginalized groups present a unique challenge to planners in that they are difficult to reach. But their homes and livelihoods are often tied to the same places where sustainable planning and development projects are sited, which makes them a particularly important population to include (Kabeer et al. 2012). And, while it may be tempting to focus on them as target groups to create opportunities for empowerment, it is also important to recognize that the poor and marginalized do not exist in social isolation (Cornwall 2008). Their carefully selected economically and socially significant relationships may link them to those better off, women with men, or other potentially better advantaged individuals or groups.

2.3.3 Social Networks and Decision-Making People are socially embedded, and as a result agency in the planning process can take different forms. Power impacts the control of decision-making and, critically, even the awareness and framing of underlying problems. Social networks, comprised of individuals and the relations between them (Scott 1991), provide a way to look at the role of power in the interrelationship between agency and structure. As planners are faced with more challenging problems and more complex communities, there is recognition of the public as individuals and groups embedded in social networks. There are numerous empirical examples that support a link between social relations and representation in the planning process (see for example, Beard and Cartmill 2007). Many studies suggest or conclude that power dynamics play a critical role

2.4 Micro–Macro Disconnect

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in determining whether social relations function to provide marginalized groups an informal means of participating or actually increase inequality. While there is a growing body of research using social network analysis in the planning literature, few studies actually measure power within social networks (Dempwolf and Lyles 2012).

2.4 Micro–Macro Disconnect Urban issues cross social and geographic boundaries and are beyond the capacity of any one community to solve (Dale and Newman 2008). While government organizations may focus on issues of climate change and urbanization, communities are more often concerned with daily activities and livelihoods. This macro–micro framing can—and often does—lead to a disconnect between planners and the public in problem-setting and problem-solving, which can in turn lead to conflict regarding best use or allocation of resources. To understand seemingly disparate macro–micro framing, and potentially conflicting behaviors, it is helpful to look at human–environment interactions that embed actions in the larger context of settings and system of settings. At the city-level, government actors apply principles of sustainable planning and development in decisions on how to best use and allocate natural resources, for example using land for electric-powered public transit to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate climate change. This constitutes macro-level framing. At the community-level, the public relies on information transferred through media and personal communications about the availability of natural resources, for example land for farming, for livelihoods, and other daily activities. This constitutes micro-level framing. Figure 2.1 illustrates macro–micro human–environment framing within the context of sustainable planning and development. So, how are resources allocated and used? And what happens in the allocation of resources when city-level needs contradict community-level needs? Power negotiations play out in the interface between planner and public, which is one place where we can gain insight into how or why the planning process succeeds or breaks down. But power is also negotiated within communities—especially among those facing higher resource scarcity. When sustainable planning and development projects target areas that are degraded or prone to natural hazards, any inhabitant poor or marginalized groups (Kabeer et al. 2012), become important stakeholders. Such vulnerable and often invisible populations are underrepresented in the participatory planning process, making it even more critical to understand their inclusion/exclusion. To gain an understanding of the larger picture, and why marginalized groups are likely to inhabit such places, it is helpful to look to human geography and cultural anthropology for theories, frameworks, and models of vulnerability and resilience.

22 Fig. 2.1 Diagram of the human–environment relationship in the context of sustainable planning and development

2 Vulnerable, yet Resilient

CITY-LEVEL

sustainable planning & development

CLIMATE CHANGE

RESOURCES

COMMUNITYLEVEL

HUMAN

social structure

LIVELIHOODS

ENVIRONMENT

2.5 Vulnerability and Resilience With roots spanning theoretical paradigms, defining and understanding vulnerability to environmental change can take many constructions. I ascribe to the school of critical theorists that conceptualize vulnerability as the interrelationship of social structure, human agency, and the environment (McLaughlin and Dietz 2008).6 Vulnerability has been broadly defined as individual and collective susceptibility to natural events and the capacity to anticipate, cope with, resist, and recover from those events (Scandlyn et al. 2013). Natural events, while originating in the biologic system, put people at risk because of human-originated geographic organization. Natural events, then, are a function of both climate and social processes. Within the natural hazards literature, vulnerability is comprised of three components: risk of exposure, risk of inadequate capacity to cope with exposure, and risk of severe consequences or limited recovery from exposure (Adger 2006). Vulnerability is a dual interaction of external susceptibility and internal coping and recovering (Birkmann 2006). There is no shortage of frameworks illustrating the process of vulnerability. Two key variations are: whether the focus is on structure or agency, and whether the system is linear or based on feedback loops. An important early model was the Pressure and Release Model (PAR) developed by Blaikie et al. (1994) (Fig. 2.2), which takes a structural and linear approach to understanding vulnerability. The PAR Model illustrates the progression of vulnerability as a convergence of root causes and dynamic pressures, which lead to unsafe conditions. Root causes 6

The author acknowledges a broad body of literature on the topic of vulnerability. McLaughlin and Dietz (2008) offer a particularly relevant definition for setting up the theoretical framework developed for this research.

2.5 Vulnerability and Resilience

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Fig. 2.2 Pressure and Release Model (Blaikie et al. 1994)

result from the distribution of resources and reflect the power distribution within society. It is a linear model where susceptibility to exposure can be observed externally by understanding political-economic systems and hazards originating in the biologic system. In this model, vulnerability and hazards combine to create a risk situation. Disaster risk is the direct outcome of root causes; however, changing politicaleconomic or ecologic systems is often not a practical solution for risk reduction—and generally beyond the planner’s reach. Instead the focus should be on solutions that extend beyond a treatment of symptoms, e.g., preventing floods rather than engineering levees. Although the effects of a natural hazard event are symptoms, for example, resulting mortality and morbidity from an earthquake, the PAR Model assumes that it is the event that allows for observation of causes that may go overlooked in day-to-day activities. In other words, it is the hazard event that brings to light underlying structural problems. A notable limitation of the PAR Model is the implied assumption that a single cause has a single effect—it is a linear model. It does not account for the web of causation where social, ecological, and economic systems overlap and feedback into one another. This is because the PAR Model does not include vulnerability concepts of internal coping and recovery at the individual-level; it puts the focus on structure and provides little space for opportunity or human agency. Despite limitations, it is an important early model in the development of vulnerability as a social phenomenon and in understanding the process of coping. Inherent in the concept of vulnerability is resiliency. Resilience is defined as the “capacity over time of a system, organization, community or individual to create, alter, and implement multiple adaptive actions in the face of unpredictable climatic

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changes” (Martin-Breen and Anderies 2011). What is missing from this definition? The interaction of social conditions. Nonetheless, resilience is understood as a complex interrelationship where increased vulnerability to external forces creates a catalyst toward adaptive action, i.e., coping and recovery or resilience. Ideally, as vulnerable individuals or groups become more resilient, they become less vulnerable. In reality, climate change and social conditions are often unpredictable, and thus the relationship between vulnerability and resilience should be understood as a process and not an end point. Definitions of vulnerability and resiliency use similar language, which makes it difficult to avoid dichotomizing them. But they are not mutually exclusive. There are cases where the most vulnerable may be the most resilient, and the moderately vulnerable may rely on resources that give them a false sense of protection. Vulnerable groups are usually poor, but it is not necessarily the most poor who are most vulnerable (Bohle et al. 1994). For example, slum-dwellers may experience significantly less mortality in the case of an earthquake than those living in poorly constructed formal high-rise apartments. The discrete or identifiable event can act as a catalyst to observe vulnerability and resilience in action. But characteristics of vulnerability and resilience are embedded in a person or group prior to an event, which is why the different people and groups experiencing the event may have different coping mechanisms and recovery. Vulnerability is a challenging concept because of complex interrelationships of environment, human agency, and social structure. But, even with limited options, vulnerable populations—even those critically vulnerable—can generate structures that help reduce their vulnerability, and the most effective strategies tend to be collective (Vasquez-Leon 2009). Ironically, institutional mechanisms that buffer people from climate change impacts might actually have the adverse effect of discouraging the development of collective capacity. Multi-layered and dimensional social ties built through everyday social interactions may be the best way for a community to develop and maintain the collective capacity to change and adapt in the face of climate change (Pelling and High 2005). This echoes Blaikie et al.’s (1994) argument that if we focus on causes and not symptoms of vulnerability, then resiliency can be tied to increased resource access and empowerment of marginal groups.

2.6 Coping and Access to Resources Human risk to disaster is a combination of vulnerability and hazard, but the two are not separate. Hazards and social processes feedback and affect each other. Debates have oscillated over whether a person is at greater or lesser risk of a hazard if they do not perceive it as a risk. Variations of risk discourse have expounded further on risk framing and perception: what one person believes to be a risk might not be a risk to another person based on differing social and cultural lenses. All of this points toward the act of coping. Faced with a hazard, a person copes in a way

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that increases or lessens their risk of susceptibility to the hazard—maintaining or moving their position toward one side or the other on the vulnerability-resilience spectrum. Blaikie et al. (1994) defined coping as “the manner in which people act within existing resources and range of expectations of a situation to achieve various ends.” But, the act of using available resources to achieve a culturally acceptable end is dependent on awareness and motivation to use those resources. Moreover, the availability of resources isn’t static; there could be a timeframe, condition, or limited quantity. Access is contingent on being able to use the resource when needed—and that depends on social and economic relations. But, people’s struggles and strategies to cope with adverse circumstances are ephemeral and change quickly—and go largely unnoticed and understudied. Ways of coping when people know an event might happen in the future because it has happened in the past according to Blaikie et al. (1994) . Preventive strategies to avoid the event altogether . Impact-minimising strategies to mitigate the effects of an event . Creation and maintenance of labor power through more or better skilled household members . Building up stores of food and saleable assets through reserves . Diversification of production strategy through multiple crops . Diversification of income sources through different and varying jobs . Development of social support networks through social capital building and moral economy . Post event coping strategies through restricting diet and calling on resources from others, selling reserves, or migrating It is important to clarify that coping is something other than what may occur through official disaster relief. Aid doesn’t increase the ability to cope, and might in fact erode it (symptoms versus causes). As Paulo Freire (2007) cautions, alienating people from their own decision-making is to change them into objects. We need to understand what people actually do. Models of disaster and risk underestimate the most vulnerable’s resources and creative response. Access to resources is dynamic and temporal, making it difficult to study and predict. This is because it is not the embedded resource, but the act of using it when needed that is critical. Coping and recovery are essential components in defining a person or group as vulnerable, and are best observed when there is a catalyst such as a natural or anthropogenic event. The event prompts the person or group to reflection on what will, is currently, or has happened then to react. Coping becomes a praxis of adaptation through the process of reflection, action, reflection. To what end does this aim for? Meeting daily needs.

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2.7 Sustainable Livelihoods Framework Political ecology offers a way forward in attempting to unravel the mechanisms of social and environmental interaction that produce social inequity. It puts the focus on production and posits that livelihoods offer a direct window into social-environment processes (Robbins 2012). In other words, social-environmental relations emerge and evolve through everyday activities (Loftus and Lumsden 2008). Poor households access and use resources in multiple and nuanced ways to meet daily needs—even when there are few resources to choose from (Parizeau 2015; Nygren and MyattHirvonen 2009). Rather than simply a job, the poor often consider livelihoods holistically. In other words, a livelihood serves more than an economic function; it is tied to ownership, circulation of knowledge, skills and relationships. Livelihood activities engender processes of inclusion and exclusion (De Haan and Zoomers 2005). Livelihoods go beyond economic activity to include cultural and political activity. Outside the formal employment sector, livelihoods are a clue to relationships of power and resistance. It should not be surprising, then, that marginalized groups often pursue opportunities that also come with risks (Parizeau 2015). In a study published by Carr and McCusker (2009), they focused on how land reform laws impacted not just land use, but livelihood decisions and spatial decisionmaking. Set in South Africa, the researchers described a case of rural black farmers forced onto the most marginalized land in overcrowded conditions. The decrease in their productivity reinforced white and state beliefs that blacks were unproductive farmers. It also changed the mindset of the black farmers themselves in their ability to be productive. Black farmers no longer trusted their own skills or knowledge and turned to white, scientific resources. By changing livelihood opportunities, land use changes had deep impacts at the level of the household and even on gender relations. Their study is an important example showing land use and livelihoods as different manifestations of the same social process through which humans negotiated challenges in the face of available resources. It points to the implication that city planners aiming toward sustainable development must carefully consider contextspecific livelihood decision-making processes. In an effort to start to bring together the many concepts introduced in this chapter, I turn to a reliable framework. The Sustainable Livelihoods Framework evolved from the vulnerability-resiliency literature in response to rural development (Fig. 2.3). It was conceptualized to understand the process of creating sustainable livelihoods (Carney 2003). According to this framework, a livelihood is defined as “[T]he capabilities, assets (including both material and social resources), and activities for a means of living. A livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks, maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets, while not undermining the natural resource base” (Scoones 1998). The Sustainable Livelihoods Framework focuses on people based on daily needs, acknowledging various capabilities rather than seeing social groups as homogenous (Birkmann 2006). It was developed to fill the need for a framework for bottom-up participatory approaches to community development, and was indebted to Amartya

2.7 Sustainable Livelihoods Framework

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Fig. 2.3 The Sustainable Livelihoods Framework by I. Scoones, adapted by D. Carney (Carney 2003; Scoones 1998)

Sen’s work on agency and capabilities (de Haan 2012). In its entirety, the framework illustrates how livelihood strategies are dependent on livelihood assets, which are influenced by the vulnerability context and transforming structures and processes. Livelihood strategies manifest as livelihood outcomes. Thus, given a particular context (environmental and social), certain livelihood assets are available, which can be leveraged in pursuit of a sustainable livelihood. Livelihoods are defined as the assets and activities, as well as the ability to access assets and activities, that determine the living gained by an individual or household (Groenewald and Bulte 2012). Livelihood strategies are influenced by the assets that are available to individuals or households; those with more assets have more options (Parizeau 2015). Hence, access to assets is a key element in the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework. Livelihood assets comprise five capitals: Human capital is related to knowledge and labor. Human capital is a critical household asset leveraged toward income or goods flows. But human capital is not the household’s only mechanism. Natural capital is the ability to leverage ecosystem assets. Financial capital is the ability to leverage money. Physical capital is the ability to leverage various tangibles or “things.” Social capital is the ability to leverage social connections. Social capital is captured from embedded resources in social networks—it can be considered an asset in networks (Lin 1999). To reduce vulnerability, it is necessary to increase access to assets (Blaikie et al. 1994). Notably, it is not just the number of assets, but rather the quality and stability—and the ability to access them when needed. And, critical social science proponents criticized the livelihoods approach for reducing livelihoods to a simple process of mobilizing resources for economic gain (de Haan 2012). In other words, it does not account for social valuation (and de-valuation) of the labor market. Although not explicit in the framework, access to resources is influenced by social relations. It has been suggested that power is an important and often overlooked explanatory variable in the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (De Haan and Zoomers 2005). The framework is an organizational strategy; it lacks theory. Scoones (2009) himself called for theory to help explain the mechanisms of power not explicit in

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the framework. This brief introduction to the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework, which served as an organizing framework for this project, will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter.

References Adger WN (2006) Vulnerability. Glob Environ Chang 16:268–281 Ahmad S, Balaban O, Doll CNH, Dreyfus M (2013) Delhi revisited. Cities 31:641–653 Bailey N (2010) Understanding community empowerment in urban regeneration and planning in England: putting policy and practice in context. Plan Pract Res 25:317–332 Baker M, Coaffee J, Sherriff G (2007) Achieving successful participation in the new UK spatial planning system. Plan Pract Res 22:79–93 Barrett SR (2002) Culture meets power. Greenwood, Westport, CT Beard VA, Cartmill RS (2007) Gender, collective action and participatory development in Indonesia. Int Dev Plan Rev 29:185–213 Beebeejaun Y, Vanderhoven D (2010) Informalizing participation: insights from Chicago and Johannesburg. Plan Pract Res 25:283–296 Birkmann J (2006) Measuring vulnerability to promote disaster-resilient societies: conceptual frameworks and definitions. In: Birkmann J (ed) Measuring vulnerability to natural hazards. United Nations University Press, New York Blaikie P, Cannon T, Davis I, Wisner B, Cannon T, Davis I, Wisner B (1994) At risk: natural hazards, people’s vulnerability and disasters. Routledge, New York Bohle HG, Downing TE, Watts MJ (1994) Climate change and social vulnerability: toward a sociology and geography of food insecurity. Glob Environ Chang 4:37–48 Brownill S, Carpenter J (2007) Participation and planning: dichotomies, rationalities and strategies for power. Town Plan Rev 78:401–428 Brownill S, Parker G (2010) Why bother with good works? The relevance of public participation(s) in planning in a post-collaborative era. Plan Pract Res 25:275–282 Carney D (2003) Sustainable livelihoods approaches: progress and possibilities for change. Department for International Development, London Carr ER, McCusker B (2009) The co-production of land use and livelihoods change: implications for development interventions. Geoforum 40:568–579 Connelly S (2010) Participation in a hostile state: how do planners act to shape public engagement in politically difficult environments? Plan Pract Res 25:333–351 Cook J, Oviatt K, Main DS, Kaur H, Brett J (2015) Re-conceptualizing urban agriculture: an exploration of farming along the banks of the Yamuna River in Delhi, India. J Agric Hum Values 32:265–279 Cornwall A (2008) Unpacking “participation”: models, meanings and practices. Community Dev J 43:269–283 Dale A, Newman L (2008) Social capital: a necessary and sufficient condition for sustainable community development? Community Dev J 45:5–21 Daniere A, Takahashi LM, Narangong A (2002) Social capital, networks, and community environments in Bangkok, Thailand. Growth Chang 33:453–484 Daniere A, Takahashi L, Naranong A, Lan VTN (2005) Social capital and urban environments in Southeast Asia: lessons from settlements in Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City. Int Dev Plan Rev 27:21–58 Datta A, Jha G (1983) Delhi: two decades of plan implementation. Habitat Int 7:37–45 Davidoff P (1965) Advocacy and pluralism in planning. J Am Inst Plann 31:331–338 De Haan L (2012) The livelihood approach: a critical exploration. Erdkunde 66:345–357 De Haan L, Zoomers A (2005) Exploring the frontier of livelihoods research. Dev Chang 36:27–47

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Meusburger P (2008) The nexus of knowledge and space (Chapter 2). In: Meusburger P, Welker M, Wunder E (eds) Clashes of knowledge. Springer, Dordrecht Monno V, Khakee A (2012) Tokenism or political activism? Some reflections on participatory planning. Int Plan Stud 17:85–101 Motasim H, Rae K, Andersson C, Auclair C, Barth B, Buhren K, Candiracci S, Dahiya B, Dercon B, Gachocho M, Galezia K, Hossain M, Kadhim M, Kishiue A, Materu J, Muhoro T, Mwaura J, Njenga C, Sommer K, Miller E, Petrella L, Precht R, Radford C, Ruijsink S, Seaforth W, Sietchiping R (2010) Planning sustainable cities: UN-Habitat practices and perspectives. UNHabitat, Nairobi Neef A, Neubert D (2010) Stakeholder participation in agricultural research projects: a conceptual framework for reflection and decision-making. Agric Hum Values 28:179–194 Newman K (2008) Whose view matters? Using participatory processes to evaluate reflect in Nigeria. Community Dev J 43:382–394 Nygren A, Myatt-Hirvonen O (2009) ‘Life here is just scraping by’: livelihood strategies and social networks among peasant households in Honduras. J Peasant Stud 36:827–854 Panelli R, Welch R (2005) Why community? Reading difference and singularity with community. Environ Plan A 37:1589–1611 Parizeau K (2015) When assets are vulnerabilities: an assessment of informal recyclers’ livelihood strategies in Buenos Aires, Argentina. World Dev 67:161–173 Pelling M, High C (2005) Understanding adaptation: what can social capital offer assessments of adaptive capacity? Glob Environ Chang 15:308–319 Peris J, Farinas S, Lopez E, Boni A (2012) Expanding collective agency in rural indigenous communities in Guatemala: a case for El Almanario approach. Int Dev Plan Rev 34:83–102 Pickering T, Minnery J (2012) Scale and public participation: issues in metropolitan regional planning. Plan Pract Res 27:249–262 Prashar S, Shaw R, Takeuchi Y (2012) Assessing the resilience of Delhi to climate-related disasters: a comprehensive approach. Nat Hazards 64:1609–1624 Rao U (2010) Making the global city: urban citizenship at the margins of Delhi. Ethos 75:402–424 Robbins P (2012) Political ecology: a critical introduction. West Sussex, Wiley-Blackwell Roberts B, Kanaley T (2010) Sustainable urban development in Asia. Aust Plan 44:18–21 Rowlands J (1995) Empowerment examined. Dev Pract 5:101–107 Saito-Jensen M, Nathan I (2011) Exploring the potentials of community-based natural resource management for benefiting local communities: policies and practice in four communities in Andhra Pradesh, India. Soc Nat Resour 24:1142–1156 Sandercock L (2003) Cosmopolis II: Mongrel cities in the 21st century. Continuum, New York Scandlyn J, Simon CN, Thomas DSK, Brett J (2013) Theoretical framing of worldviews, values, and structural dimensions of disasters. In: Philips BD, Thomas DSK, Fothergill A, Blinn-Pike L (eds) Social vulnerability to disasters, 2nd edn. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL Scoones I (1998) Sustainable rural livelihoods: a framework for analysis. IDS Working Paper 72. IDS, Brighton Scoones I (2009) Livelihoods perspectives and rural development. J Peasant Stud 36:171–196 Scott J (1991) Social network analysis: a handbook. Sage, London Sen A (1985) Well-being, agency and freedom: the Dewey lectures 1984. J Philos 82:169–221 Snodgrass JG, Lacy MG, Sharma SK, Jhala YS, Advani M, Bhargava NK, Upadhyay C (2008) Witch hunts, herbal healing, and discourses of indigenous ecodevelopment in North India: theory and method in the anthropology. Am Anthropol 110:299–312 Sultana F (2009) Community and participation in water resources management: gendering and naturing development debates from Bangladesh. Trans Inst Br Geogr 34:346–363 Swapan MSH (2013) The realities of participation in planning in Bangladesh: the role of institutional and socio-political factors in shaping participatory planning in developing countries. PhD, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, School of Built Environment, Curtin University

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The World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) Our common future. Oxford University Press, New York Vasquez-Leon M (2009) Hispanic farmers and farmworkers: social networks, institutional exclusion, and climate vulnerability in Southeastern Arizona. Am Anthropol 111:289–301 Wong S (2008) Building social capital in Hong Kong by institutionalising participation: potential and limitations. Urban Stud 45:1413–1437

Chapter 3

Whose Land Is This Anyway?

Abstract This chapter introduces the reader to the general context of the case study of Yamuna farmers using political ecology as an organizing framework to describe past, present, future conditions of the site. It provides a broad overview of the theoretical framework underpinning the case study research beginning with definitions of power as a relational construct elaborated by cultural anthropologist Eric Wolf through four modes: individual, ego-alter, tactical or organizational, and structural. The chapter then describes how relational power was operationalized through the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework. A key focus of this project was to operationalize the role of power as it relates to the influence of and access to livelihood assets through social networks, and an in-depth description is provided on how social networks help mobilize or block access to resources. Some of the challenges of aggregating and linking modes of power are acknowledged. Finally, this chapter summarizes an early pilot study and how the research site was selected including challenges to defining physical and social community boundaries. The chapter ends with a description of political and ecological site conditions. Keywords Agriculture land use · Urban encroachment · Yamuna River floodplain · Political ecology · Sustainable Livelihoods Framework · Relational power · Eric Wolf · Social network theory · Household capital · Insecure land tenure

3.1 Human Organization Is Not Random, Nor Even Delhi is not a gentle city—it consumes you the moment you enter. The National Capital Territory (Delhi NCT) has an estimated population density of approximately 20,000 people per square mile.1 It is not surprising that it feels like there are people everywhere. Some areas are less crowded than others—and it is even possible to find quiet, tree lined streets devoid of all but a few pedestrians, maintenance workers, and security officers on duty. But the vast majority of the urban fabric throbs with people. The sheer density of people can be disorienting. The first time I travelled to 1

https://www.worldscapitalcities.com/capital-facts-for-new-delhi-india/.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. A. Diehl, Grown in Delhi, Cities and Nature, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26380-4_3

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Delhi for fieldwork, coincidentally also my first trip to India, it took a few weeks for my senses to adjust to the sights, sounds, smells, and human-nearness to begin to see patterns of movement and spatial practices of inclusion and exclusion. I began to notice which people were where and which people were not, well, there. On the surface, cities are planned for the welfare of the people. To that end, urban planners are challenged to organize the built environment in such a way that infrastructure meets the needs of the people and is efficient and cost effective. Transportation, waste/water, energy, commerce, health, education, etc.—these are all pieces of the urban system that require thoughtful integration and regulation. As these pieces get slotted together or separated, the people also slot together or separate. What happens in the process of planning every urban plot is that agriculture is often omitted as a rural land use—incompatible and impractical with the urban environment. In fact, agriculture has become and largely continues to be synonymous with the rural landscape. The trend to separate agriculture from city land uses has roots in the ‘sanitation argument of West European colonial powers... [despite] pathologies and epidemics... [with] their origins more in pollution-prone manufacturing’ (Mougeot and France 2016). In other words, there was an attitude that agriculture in the city was not sanitary and would lead to disease outbreaks. This attitude prevailed despite the reality that morbidity and mortality was (is) more likely to be caused by traffic congestion, sedentary work environments, and unsafe drinking water—all of these further exacerbated by reduced green space including agriculture, which could mitigate air pollution, provide space for physical activity, etc. The result was that agriculture has and continues to be pushed out of the city. But not everywhere. Cultivated landscapes are still found in undeveloped, underutilized, and un-used spaces across cities world-wide. The reach of urban planning within city boundaries is pervasive, but due to environmental (flooding, soil contamination), social (low-value, eye-sore), or political (contested ownership) reasons, some land is assigned an uncommitted use: undeveloped. Such spaces often succumb to lack of maintenance or are cultivated informally by resourceful inhabitants, often unknown or ignored by authorities. When I arrived in Delhi, I wanted to know: Where are the gardens? Where are the farmers? Who in Delhi is feeding Delhi? Below is an excerpt from the early days of the pilot study. An excerpt from ‘Urban Agriculture in Delhi, India,’ a research blog, describing the quest to find out where agriculture was located in Delhi https://urbanagdelhi.wordpress.com/ written by Jessica Diehl, pilot study research team We are anxious to get on the ground and begin talking to people who are practicing urban agriculture, but it is not that straight forward. First things

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first, we need a translator; someone who knows the local language and can help us navigate the city. Last week we met with Ashish at ICLEI (www.iclei.org/sa). He was very enthusiastic about our project, and affirmed that it is an area of research in which ICLEI has interest. A few things we learned from this meeting: 1. Organic farming is gaining prevalence at the periphery of Delhi as it becomes more popular among higher income groups. 2. Agriculture occurring along the Yamuna River is discouraged because of the high pollution of the water and flooding occurrence. However, it is the main area for open ‘free’ land, and allows access to water and fertilizer (due to high organic waste levels in the water). 3. The New Delhi Municipal Council leases fruit-bearing trees in the heart of Delhi following the monsoon season to low-income harvesters; this keeps the grounds cleared of fallen fruit and provides a small source of income for the harvesters. Later in the evening we had dinner with a diverse group of folks affiliated with ISET (http://www.i-s-e-t.org/) and IDRC (http://publicwebsite.idrc. ca/EN/Pages/default.aspx) coordinated by Marcus, a colleague and long-time friend of John [pilot study faculty advisor]. The general consensus was that things are happening along the Yamuna. The next morning, after a circuitous rickshaw ride, we met with Dr. Sabata of the Department of the Environment. Although no one we have met with as of yet is directly involved with urban agriculture, there is a clear concern related to sustaining the rapidly growing population–-and food security is at the top of the list. After our meeting, we decided that we had to get to the river just to see if we could see anything. We hopped the metro and, as we crossed the languid brown waters of the Yamuna, immediately recognized the organized rows of crops crowding the banks. Yep—it is time to get a translator! The vast majority of agriculture in Delhi occurs along the Yamuna River floodplain (Fig. 3.1). Peri-urban agriculture is also prevalent, but the peri-urban edge continues to move farther away from the center of the city whereas the Yamuna River is comparatively fixed. Historically, the Delhi Sultanate was established centuries ago in 1206. Eight subsequent cities rose and fell until 1639 with Shah Jahan constructing the walls of Old Delhi, named Shahjahanabad at the time, on the western bank of the Yamuna River. In 1857 Shahjahanabad fell to the British, who built modern New Delhi immediately south-west. Old Delhi remains the symbolic heart of the city crowded by local residents and tourists alike jostling through the markets, alleyways, and places of worship including the Jama Masid, one of the largest mosques in India. As the city expanded, it did so by carving out every square foot above the edge of the Yamuna River floodplain. Although encroachment on the floodplain has happened in recent decades, even someone with an untrained eye can look at a satellite map of Delhi and easily trace the edges of the floodplain. Simply, annual monsoons

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Fig. 3.1 Map of agriculture on Yamuna River floodplain. Source Google Earth

cause the River to inundate the floodplain, and to build there requires expensive engineering—so don’t build there! Development of the Yamuna River floodplain coincides with the effects of climate change producing more frequent and severe flooding coupled with increased pollution of the river water due to upstream industrial effluent, untreated city wastewater, and generally contaminated stormwater runoff from city surfaces. For centuries the floodplain remained undeveloped, largely in a natural state but with some cultivation. So why develop now? The key to understanding society, according to Karl Marx, is to understand how much control a society has over their environment (Bergman et al. 2004). Human organization is not random nor is settlement even. More unpredictable environments require more resources to control—i.e., settle—it. We humans find the best place, with the best resources, and access to the best places to meet the most of our wants and needs, all within the limitations of our individual and collective budgets. But some people live in hazardous places—why? Resources aka budget. If we understand human vulnerability as a social construct dependent on social mechanisms (Birkmann 2006; Blaikie et al. 1994; Scandlyn et al. 2013), then root causes will unlikely be found in the natural environment. Underlying the critical approach to understanding vulnerability and resiliency is the concept of power, as a driver of the political, economic, and social forces shaping the human–environment relationship. Yates (2012) called for research to address how knowledge, power, and skills flow informally outside government systems in the creation of adaptive

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capacity. There is a subtle shift in focus from constraints of human agency (structural aspects) to opportunities—what people have the power to do. But, as people develop strategies to achieve a livelihood and meet daily life expectations, there is a struggle over resources. And competition for resources means that the best place, as defined above, is a moving target.

3.2 Political Ecology: The Structural Context A shortcoming in livelihoods research is the economic, cultural ecological construction of livelihoods that either dis-embeds or superficially embeds local activities within the larger scale context (Carr 2015). The micro–macro convergence is weak, which is why livelihoods research such as application of the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework has fallen out of favor. In an effort to make sense of interpersonal negotiations, the larger context is often subsumed as background noise. This is problematic when it is the most important factor driving micro-negotiations, and it often is. Fundamentally, human behavior is embedded in multiple levels of social engagement: an individual may have the potential to act (power within), but it is only by understanding which actions are possible (power to), in which contexts (power over), and with whom (power with), that action is more likely to occur. Livelihoods approaches tend to downplay or ignore the multi-level negotiation of power. Livelihoods are about maintaining or improving living conditions, but they also act to define identity and are contingent on human–environment relationships. Livelihoods approaches have roots in political ecology, but have strayed away in an effort toward more practical and apolitical applications. The irony is that without theory, livelihoods approaches lose traction without an ability to predict drivers for change. We can point to gaps in the system but cannot explain how and why they are there. As a critical approach that posits that political, economic, and social forces act on populations to influence their relationship with the environment, political ecology warrants re-integration. Critical theory is the assumption that power distribution is an outcome of historical and political economic context and can act as a guide to understand the sources and dimensions of inequality (LeCompte and Schensul 1999). Building from the concepts of critical theory, political ecology argues that environmental changes do not affect people homogeneously; there is unequal distribution of costs and benefits, which reinforce, increase, or reduce social and economic inequalities (Robbins 2012). This dynamic process impacts power relationships, and vulnerability can be understood as past and present patterns of domination and marginalization (Vasquez-Leon 2009). Central to political ecology is the assumption that the environment is a social construct (Robbins 2012). For example, natural events can have both positive and negative impacts: biotic systems often depend on disturbance and become constructed as ‘hazards’ when they unequally burden people, such as floods along floodplains that restore nutrients to the soil but destroy existing vegetation and cause human suffering. To reduce the human burden of hazards it is necessary to increase access to resources and empower vulnerable groups (Blaikie et al. 1994). Political ecology recognizes

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that measures and impacts of vulnerability are scale-specific and can vary based on individual, community or region-level analysis. Underlying a critical approach to understanding vulnerability and resiliency is the concept of power, acting as a driver of the political, economic, and social forces that shape the human–environment relationship. This touches lightly on the concept of power, but what is power really? How do we know it when we see it?

3.3 Power with a Small “p” In Power meets Culture, an in-depth review of the current status of power across the disciplines of anthropology, sociology, and psychology, Steven Barrett (2002) concludes that: First, there is no agreement in the literature about the nature or meaning of power. Second, power does not add to analysis unless it is unpacked. Power is nearly always present, so it must be unpacked to capture variability— otherwise there is no way to explain how or why it is present. Third, power in the abstract is not fruitful for explanation; it can only be analyzed in the context of human interaction—and some would say after the fact, as actual rather than potential power. And fourth, an understanding of power doesn’t necessarily mean nor lead to rejection of power. In other words, acknowledging the presence of power does not mean it can or will be negated, neglected, resisted or changed. As mentioned in the previous chapter, one of the early explicit definitions of power, credited to Steven Lukes (1978), was that power is a measure of one’s potential or actualized ability to control the environment including other’s behaviors (Barrett 2002). Concepts in the literature used to construct a definition of power include authority, manipulation, consensus, consent, persuasion, influence, coercion and force. In his seminal work, Power: A Radical View, Lukes (1974) proposed a threedimensional view of power. One-dimensional power is conceptualized as power over or zero-sum. It is measured as who makes the decision. The second dimension of power is that it can also function to reinforce barriers over another person or group. It is measured as who controls the agenda, from which the decision is made—akin to problem-setting in city planning. The first and second dimensions rely on conflict as a mechanism to create a situation where power can play out, e.g., this or that. In the third-dimension of power, described by Lukes as his ‘radical view’, power can be found in the prevention of conflict through agenda-setting, i.e., by omitting the item of conflict from the possible options on the agenda. In other words: this and not that. The third-dimension conceptualizes power as the ability to shape perception, cognition, and preference. All three dimensions are embedded in human agency—the ability or potential of an agent to act. As a theoretical construct, power was elaborated by cultural anthropologist Eric Wolf as an agency–structure phenomenon; Wolf’s important contribution to the discourse on power was to push power beyond the boundaries of human agency (Barrett et al. 2001). He combined agency and structure, building on the work of Anthony Giddens (1984) and Jeffrey C. Isaac (1989) who described power as the

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capacity of an agent to act as constrained or enabled by his or her social relations. I call attention here to the fact that Wolf did not portray power as everything: power was one principal concept he used in conjunction with social relations and ideas. Wolf dismissed the conception of power as a substance or force, something to be grasped or lost, rather arguing that power be considered a relational mechanism and regarded as an aspect of all human relations (Barrett et al. 2001). In other words, zero-sum power was only one variant. His was power with a small p. This was an important evolution of the conception of power enabling Wolf to develop a theory across micro to macro mechanisms, which provided a scaffolding for this research. In his view, power was conceptualized as working through different modes and involving different types of relationships: power as an individual attribute (inherent), ego-alter power (between one person and another or others), tactical or organizational power (control of setting or arena), and structural power (control of context—namely, labor) (Wolf 1990). The first two modes are agency-oriented whereas the other two move into the structural realm. Elaborating a nuanced conception of power enables acknowledgement of power as a multiple and complex agency–structure phenomenon pervasive, but working differently, across multiple levels of human interaction. It helps explain why decisions made at one level can complement or conflict with decisions made at a different level. Small p power provides an anchoring point for the focus of this book on human behavior embedded in multiple levels of social engagement: an individual may have the potential to act (inherent), but it is only by understanding which actions are possible (context), in which contexts (setting), and with whom (person to person), that we gain a more complete understanding of agency and power. Wolf conceptualized power as gains and/or losses through relations, and suggested that a catalyst was necessary for power to manifest—a conflict to move potential power to action. Pushed beyond the confines of human agency and linking to structural aspects, Wolf made an important contribution to power discourse and was a pioneer in political ecology as a research approach. Although Wolf took an agency–structure approach, he was most concerned with power as it played out through social-political-economichistorical processes. He applied a political economy frame to power and focused his research primarily at the structural level. He believed that human actions affect the world, and that the world, in turn, affects human action. And, while a great deal of anthropology research at that time focused on the lived reality of people doing things (focus on agency), Wolf’s goal was to situate human action (agency) in the larger reality of the world (structure) (Wolf 1990). In consequence, his attention was on organizational and structural modes of power. The product of Wolf’s work was an in-depth examination of three cases: the Kwakiutl, the Aztecs, and Hitler’s Germany; which represented the extreme of human variability related to power and ideas (extreme societies) (Wolf 2001). Relationships of power are most evident when a major organizational transformation occurs such as in cases of conflict, and that was how he selected his cases to investigate power at the structural level. As Lukes stated, power can be found in situations where conflict is suppressed; however, power and conflict are intrinsically connected (Barrett et al. 2001), and, therefore, power is nearly always present in cases of conflict.

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Wolf’s structural approach to understanding how social relations produce power, which in turn shapes ideas, undoubtedly advanced how we conceptualize power as manifest across society. Wolf’s thesis was that ideas, social relations, and power are interdependent and vary according to the form of social labor. This means that, while Wolf endeavored to embed lived reality (human agency) in time and place (structure) in order to give us a more nuanced understanding of power, he did not negate the notion that society is a produced through everyday activities enacted in accordance with the specific mode of production. This he clearly laid out in his more modest volume Peasants (Wolf 1966). Wolf’s theoretical approach was not just an examination of micro to macro but rather a call to overlay power relations within and across modes. The task of micro–macro convergence of power is herculean, and prone to superficial, broad scope or dis-embedding local activities from the larger economic, cultural, ecological context. It requires a deep and broad understanding of power relations at each level and the interactions across levels. In application, it is a lot of moving targets. In an attempt to secure a few bridges and a small ladder across the multi-level divide, the first step is to get more clear on how to measure power relations.

3.4 Measuring Power Relations The motivation for this research was that, in practice, inequitable power relations plague the community engagement process in sustainable planning and development. I argue that this is rooted in a gap in understanding power relations within and across communities. And rooted in a gap in understanding how power affects participation and who has influence in the decision-making process. Studies that measure social capital, social relations, and social networks have been limited by the challenge of operationalizing the concept of power. This is partially due to the tendency to look at power at only one level of influence, e.g., planner-public nexus, and a onedimensional focus of power measured as who makes the decision—who has power over. In an effort to bring attention to other ways it can manifest, I expand on the concept of power using Wolf’s theory that it is a multiple and complex phenomenon pervasive, but working differently, across multiple levels of human interaction. Although Wolf took an agency–structure approach in developing a theory of power, he was most concerned with power as it played out through structure. Wolf’s structural inquiry undoubtedly advanced how we conceptualize how power scaffolds society. I adapt Wolf’s theoretical ideas with an emphasis on agency to demonstrate empirically some of the ways in which power functions—and functions differently, but not necessarily independently—through the more agency-based modes of power. The Sustainable Livelihoods Framework provides a compatible framework to help translate power relations into everyday activities. Furthermore, it provides an organizing framework to identify the various components within each of Wolf’s modes of power and thereby bridge agency–structure dimensions.

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While the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework was designed to organize key components across multiple scales related to the process of attaining a sustainable livelihood, it doesn’t explain underlying mechanisms that drive the process. It has been suggested that power is an important and often overlooked explanatory variable in the framework (De Haan and Zoomers 2005). The Sustainable Livelihoods Framework leaves space for power, but it is an organizational strategy and does not have explanatory power; it lacks theory—as mentioned, largely the result of a push toward apolitical frameworks by international community development organizations who were using it in the field. Scoones (2009) called for theory to help explain Sustainable Livelihoods Framework mechanisms, and Wolf provides a compatible theory for how the components of the Framework are related to each other. In turning to Wolf, I sought to answer: What is power? And, in drawing from the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework, I sought to answer: Where do I look for it? But, a question remained: How will I know it when I see it? The next section describes how I combined the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (Scoones 2009) with Wolf’s theories of relational power (2001) and social network theory (Knoke and Yang 2008) to operationalize key concepts so I could start collecting data in the field.

3.4.1 Structural Power: What Is Possible At the structural level, power organizes the setting by shaping the social field and determining which actions are even possible; it gives the big picture. At this level, power specifies the distribution and direction of energy flows. Wolf draws from Marx’s idea of the power of capital to employ and allocate labor power; it structures the possible field of action (Barrett 2002). The structural mode of power is represented in the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework as the interaction between the ‘vulnerability context’ and ‘transforming structures’ (Fig. 3.2).

Fig. 3.2 Structural mode of power overlaid on the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework by I. Scoones, adapted by D. Carney (Carney 2003; Scoones 1998)

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Power at this level is not situated in human agency, but in the reinforcing process that occurs between structure and agency. In the vulnerability context of the framework, recall the definition of vulnerability as individual and collective susceptibility to natural events and the capacity to anticipate, cope with, resist, and recover from those events (Scandlyn et al. 2013). Natural events—while originating in natural systems—put people at risk because of human-originated geographic organization. So, power in the vulnerability context is the ability to become more resilient; the power to create, alter, and implement multiple adaptive actions in the face of unpredictable climatic changes (Martin-Breen and Anderies 2011). This is where environmental resources, shocks, trends, and seasonality impose limits on the infinite possibilities of social labor and livelihood options. Structural power in the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework is also a ‘transforming structure’ comprised of levels of government and the private sector. This is where the system of labor is defined and where the systems organizing human activities are defined, e.g., human rights, legal/penalty system, rituals/symbols, etc.

3.4.2 Organizational Power: In What Context At the organizational level, power manifests as control over the contexts within which people interact. The organizational mode of power is represented in the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework as ‘transforming processes’ (Fig. 3.3). Organizational power as a transforming process is comprised of laws, policies, culture, and institutions. The organizational level is important because it sets up the relationships among people that determine how resources are allocated, who controls them, and who benefits. It is, in effect, about setting the agenda. The focus shifts more to human agency, but maintains an interaction with structure.

Fig. 3.3 Organizational mode of power overlaid on the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework by I. Scoones, adapted by D. Carney (Carney 2003; Scoones 1998)

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3.4.3 Ego-Alter Power: With Whom The ego-alter level moves into the arena of individual human behavior through the interactions and transactions that take place between one person and another. At this level, Wolf takes the Weberian view that power is the ability of a person to impose his or her will on another person or group(s). The focus is on human agency without an arena (agency not structure). The ego-alter mode of power is represented in the framework under ‘livelihood assets’ (Fig. 3.4). Although Wolf referenced the individual as the unit of focus, much of his research described in Peasants (Wolf 1966) focused on the household as a unit of analysis. This is a better fit with the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework, which puts the focus at the household level. Thus, in this framework ego comprises the household. Ego-alter power, defined as the interactions and transactions that take place between people, is represented in the framework as ‘influence and access’ to livelihood assets in the form of human, natural, financial, physical, and social capital. Drawing from the Weberian view, Wolf’s theory of power translates in the framework as power to influence and access livelihood assets through social networks, a critical mechanism for mobilizing resources beyond the household (Blaikie et al. 1994). While Wolf’s structural approach to understanding power relations left us without a deep understanding of how to approach this more agency-oriented mode of power, we find clues in Peasants (Wolf 1966). He described social relations as a combination of utilitarian/instrumental and ceremonial ties whereby labor, goods or money must be paid to maintain them. Further elaborating, he describes alliances formed by peasants in an effort to share burdens and more evenly distribute threats to livelihoods—noting that one peasant household might lose a crop due to flooding one year whereas a neighbor might the next year. By helping each other out, peasants are able ensure some degree of stability. I will return to this mode of power in the next section in order to dig deeper into the link between power and social networks.

Fig. 3.4 Ego-alter mode of power overlaid on the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework by I. Scoones, adapted by D. Carney (Carney 2003; Scoones 1998)

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Fig. 3.5 Individual mode of power overlaid on the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework by I. Scoones, adapted by D. Carney (Carney 2003; Scoones 1998)

3.4.4 Individual-Level Power: Potential to Act Lastly, at the individual level, power is exhibited as the potential to act; it represents a proxy for behavior because it is where inherent action exists. The individual mode of power is represented in the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework as ‘livelihood strategies’ (Fig. 3.5). Again, I note that Wolf’s theory of power at this level referenced the individual; however, his research focus on the household as a unit of analysis is more relevant to the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework. Individual power is the inherent strength or capability of a person or, in this case, household. Presumably, in the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework, livelihood strategies are part of a process of awareness, evaluation, and valuing of inherent individual and household strengths and capabilities. Thus, livelihood strategies serve as one component of this mode of power. The fundamental characteristic of a household2 is that it is a unit that unites multiple functions including economic provisioning, socialization, sexual services and reproduction (Wolf 2001). It is ideally maximally efficient at the least cost with horizontal and vertical aspects. Horizontal aspects relate the household to other socially equivalent households including reputation, marriage, and general trust in shared experiences. Vertical aspects relate to economic mobility, et cetera. Individual and family reputation are inter-related and reinforce each other; one can be sanctioned from the family if they do wrong, by the same token, ties can limit capacity for one to advance status. Households comprise a resource unit—although there can, and often are, unequal distributions of resources within a household, e.g. based on gender or age. Although the family is itself internally comprised of ego-alter relations, it is a unique unit of cooperation. This discussion is taken up again in Part II as part of measuring the individual mode of power.

2

Note that household and family are used interchangeably throughout this book.

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3.4.5 Livelihood Outcomes: The Outcome of Power Beyond the scope of Wolf’s lens of power, ‘livelihood outcomes’ in the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework are the outcome of the multiple levels of influence on human behavior and livelihood decisions. In other words, livelihood outcomes are the end result of multiple modes of power influencing the agency–structure process. It is a measure of absolute or relative status or change in status over a short or long period of time. Livelihood outcomes are the product of the various components of the framework, but outcomes also feedback to access and influence of livelihood assets, which are then mediated by transforming structures and processes—which in turn further affect the vulnerability context, which is moderated by changes in livelihood assets. Within this circuitous framework, power relations work differently at the different levels. But—and I hope it is clear now—the levels are not mutually exclusive and the framework illustrates feedbacks among levels. While I fully acknowledge the importance of considering all four modes of power as described by Wolf, the focus of the research described this book was on human behavior as embedded in multiple levels of influence and our gap in understanding what happens when organizationalpower, i.e., city planning, is exclusionary. Thus, I focus more on human agency and less on structural aspects of power. Specifically, I concentrated on ego-alter and individual modes power (‘access to livelihood assets’ and ‘livelihood strategies’ in Fig. 3.6), but I considered organizational and structural modes to contextualize and gain a multi-dimensional understanding of farmers’ agency in this study.

Fig. 3.6 Research diagram integrating Wolf’s individual and ego-alter modes of power with Sustainable Livelihoods Framework components

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3.4.6 Ego-Alter Power: In-Depth A key focus of this project was to operationalize the role of power as it relates to the influence of and access to livelihood assets through social networks. Influence of and access to livelihood assets through social networks can produce gains and/or losses but power isn’t a simple equation of net gain. Wolf conceptualized ego-alter power as the capacity of an ego (household) to impose their will on an alter (relation). Although he was vague in describing how ego-alter power works, he defined it as the interactions and transactions that take place between people, “If men are to participate in social relations, therefore, they must also work to establish a fund against which these expenditures may be charged” (Wolf 1966). Wolf equates power with gain, but gain can take the form of immediate or delayed gain—the act of investing with the expectation of a future potential return, influenced by Marx.3 Investment in a social network can provide direct returns, for example instructing a hired laborer to use a more efficient and cost saving farming technique, or indirect returns, for example increasing the status of the group that the farmer is associated with, which in turn increases the farmer’s status. Investment can also provide immediate returns in the form of exchange—farmers working for each other in kind so they don’t have to pay outside laborers or each other. Thus, power to influence and access livelihood assets through social networks can be measured as: investment, withdrawal, and exchange. Investment is defined as contributing with the expectation of a future return. It is, in this sense, power to give (it is implied that investment is free of coercion; no other person imposes his or her will on the outcome). Withdrawal is defined as utilizing an asset. It was, in this sense, power to take. Exchange occurs when the investment and withdrawal are concurrent. In other words, a household reaps the benefits of investment without waiting. Power is always present, but it does not always manifest—it can be blocked, limited, negated, or taken away. A social relation that blocks access to assets is a barrier to power. Although Wolf does not discuss the concept of barriers to power, it is embedded in the concept of power as zero-sum or power over. A barrier to power is not the same as lack of power, but instead a particular relation preventing a household from getting something they believe they could have if that relation was not preventing them from getting it. Another way to think about barriers is that a household has the desire and skills (potential to act); but they are prevented from acting at the ego-alter level (unrealized power). This is why potential power is challenging to assess—because manifestation is not a given. And it is why a multi-modal approach is a more complete way to measure power.

3

Wolf’s theories of power were heavily influenced by Marx.

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3.5 Social Networks for Mobilize Resources Social networks are a critical mechanism for mobilizing resources beyond the household (Blaikie et al. 1994). The Sustainable Livelihoods Framework conceptualizes this process as household influence and access to resources in the form of five capitals. And Wolf posits the process functions through power, which I have defined as investment, withdrawal, exchange, and barriers. Yet, neither approach prescribes a method for measuring social networks. Fortunately, research on social networks has gained a lot of traction in recent decades. Social networks are comprised of agents and the relationships between them (Scott 1991). Social network theory situates agents within the larger group rather than seeing the group as composed of unrelated agents, and allows for the observation and location of exchanges among them (LeCompte and Schensul 1999). Agents are defined as individuals or collectives and relationships are defined as the contact, connection, or tie between a pair of agents, e.g., person-to-person, person-to-group, group-to-group (Knoke and Yang 2008). A relation exists only if two agents maintain association. Central to social network theory is the concept that social structures facilitate or constrain opportunities, behaviors, and cognitions (Carrasco et al. 2008). In this way, social relationships impact the creation of common meanings (Norris et al. 2008), and have an important influence on behavior (Knoke and Yang 2008). A core assumption of social network theory is that direct or intensive contact exposes agents to better information, greater awareness, and higher susceptibility to influence; whereas indirect contact exposes agents to new ideas, and potential access to useful resources. This is related to Wolf’s observation of two kinds of peasant coalitions: those involving relations between peasant and peasant (direct relations) and those between peasants and non-peasant superiors such as a landowner (indirect relations) (Wolf 1966). Social networks act to channel information and resources to agents, help create interests and shared identities, and promote shared norms and values. Three components for measuring social networks are presence of agent-ties, access to resources, and use of resources (Lin 1999). It is important to highlight that presence does not equate to access, and access does not necessarily lead to action. Social network theory draws from many disciplines including anthropology, graph theory, and management science, and has roots in sociology in assuming that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts (Carrasco et al. 2008). There are three key assumptions (Knoke and Yang 2008): the first is that attributes such as gender and age are static but relations are dynamic because they exist at specific time–place locales and can disappear or be suspended elsewhere. This means that relations are more important in understanding observed behavior than attributes. The second assumption is that the type of information exchanged and degree of influence depends on whether the relation is direct or indirect. The third assumption is that agents change relation structures both intentionally and unintentionally; structures are a micro–macro level process of within-group and across-group relations. The core theoretical problem in developing a methodology to measure a social network is to explain the occurrence of different relationships (ties) between agents

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and account for variation in linkages, i.e., the type of relation. Often, social networks are measured quantitatively through a structure–function lens; metrics include identifying nodes and links (agents and relationships) and weighting them based on measures that include between-ness, bridging, centrality, closeness, and reach (Scott 1991). A quantitative approach provides information on the distribution and connectivity of relationships, related to presence, but is limited in the ability to identify how or why resources are accessible (embedded) or if they are used. Social network measures are, therefore, strengthened by a mixed-methods approach (Edwards 2010). In addition to qualitative and quantitative approaches, there is also growing evidence that physical proximity is related to social interactions; however, studies that explicitly map social networks using specific geographic locations are limited (Butts et al. 2012; Doreian and Conti 2012; Hipp et al. 2012; Verdery et al. 2012). Few studies actually measure power in social networks in the planning literature (Dempwolf and Lyles 2012; Shin 2021). The ability to measure empirically how people access and influence knowledge and resources through the people they know is an important step toward understanding how connections through social networks have the potential to increase or decrease representation of marginalized groups in the events that impact their lives. Mdee (2008) conducted an ethnographic study to understand how agency of individuals related to patterns of collective community participation and found that connections through social networks could effectively increase representation of women, the young and old, and poor in the participation process. She initially intended to look at how individual attributes of age, gender, and wealth predicted formal public engagement, but instead she found that people could exhibit agency through everyday informal interactions regardless of attributes. Based on this and other studies (Beebeejaun and Vanderhoven 2010; Daniere et al. 2005), we know that power negotiation occurs inside and outside the formal planning arena, and that informal connections can provide agency through representation by those actively participating in the formal arena. Yet, explaining how power negotiation works in or through social relations is understudied and the starting point for this research. Without going too much deeper, it is useful to explain how I operationalized ego-alter relational power for the purpose of this research. Simply, I focused on three qualities: type of transaction (five capitals based on the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework), direction of transaction (investment, withdrawal, exchange, or barrier according to Wolf), and degree of influence (direct or indirect based on social network theory). In doing so, I was able to measure the relational power among the urban farmers in Delhi. The next part of this book is their story. It is a detailed story of the relationships that a group of marginalized households established and maintained in order to gain access to and influence over the assets needed to sustain their livelihoods. It is also a story about relationships that created barriers to livelihood assets—a phenomenon gaining attention (Adhikari and Goldey 2010; Eyben et al. 2008; Newman 2008). To give you one example, I interviewed a farmer who said he had filled out an application through a local advocate for an identification card so his family could receive basic social services including food rations. But the landlord—who charged

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less for rent than other landlords—refused to provide proof of residency. Consequently, the farmer could not submit the application. He accepted the barrier created by his landlord in exchange for the benefit of low rent. This is but one example that illustrates how households weigh costs (no IDs; social services) and benefits (cheap rent) of accessing different resources through relations. By capturing the complexity of differing power relations that comprised household social networks, I demonstrate how a community of marginalized farmers negotiate and make tradeoffs that in turn increase or decrease their ability to control the events that impact their lives—including access to land and future resources.

3.6 Aggregating and Linking Modes of Power Social relations may be a series of time–place interactions, but how power is negotiated through influence and access to knowledge and resources is a complex web of multi-level co-occurrences that aggregate in unexpected and uneven ways. Although the mix of qualitative-quantitative and spatial methods employed to measure power relations in this research allowed for a more in-depth analysis, the multiple methods also complicated analysis and interpretation of findings. To further complicate my analysis and interpretation of findings was the need to compare across different units of analysis. In research design one should avoid the pitfalls of ecological fallacy—a tough bias to resolve because a multi-level theory of power practically dictates it. Measuring power required me to seek out a multitude of time–place interactions to see where, how, and what kinds of power households manifested. By piecing together micro-activities, I learned about whom the households interacted with through their daily work tasks, which influenced household knowledge-base and understanding of the land development situation, and, ultimately had an impact on household beliefs and behaviors and how they envisioned their future. But this research is not a simple catalog of human interactions—which would only have provided a snapshot of power as an individual attribute (inherent) and ego-alter power (between one person and another or others). I had to take my snapshot and compare it against organizational power and structural power. Further complicating interpretation of findings was the physical environment—not simply the vulnerability context but the urban environment as an historical-socio-ecological context itself. An important, but subordinated, component of this research, in drawing from both political ecology and social network theory, was the geographic embeddedness of the farmers themselves and their urban-agrarian livelihoods. By now it should be clear that my motivation for this project was that in practice inequitable power relations plague the community engagement process in sustainable planning and development. I see this research rooted in a gap in how we pay lip service to power relations within and across communities without adding substance. And, I see it as a gap in how ‘experts’ (myself included) understand how power affects participation and who has influence in the decision-making process. Studies that measure social relations have been limited by the challenge of operationalizing the

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concept of power—partially due to the one-dimensional, single level of influence and neglect the more nuanced ways that power can work, mainly pointing out who has power over. I am motivated to think beyond this planner-public box. I wanted to demonstrate empirically some of the ways in which power functions—and functions differently but not necessarily independently—through the more agency-based modes of power that Eric Wolf described. Combining Wolf’s theories of power with the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework enabled me to operationalize different modes of power. Furthermore, the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework helped to conceptualize feedback loops by representing a framework for how power at the various levels might interact. By using multi-modal power as a lens, I was able to operationalize the link between influence/access and livelihood assets based on Wolf’s theory that power is a relational phenomenon. How households influence and access livelihood assets has been a gap in the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework, but, while Wolf’s ego-alter mode of power prescribes power to influence and access livelihood assets through social relations, it is a theory not a method. Thus, I employed social network analysis, which, in addition to providing a method for measuring power relations, also benefitted from the theoretical framework. Social relations may function as a series of time–place interactions, but how power is negotiated through influence and access to knowledge and resources during those interactions is a complex web of co-occurrences that aggregate in unexpected and uneven ways. Although the mix of qualitative, quantitative and spatial methods used in this research allowed for a more in-depth analysis than previous studies (for example by Holman 2008; McKether 2011; Butts et al. 2012), these multiple methods also complicated analysis and interpretation of findings. The remainder of this book is a view inside a marginalized group of urban farmers cultivating the Yamuna River floodplain in Delhi so that I can offer insight into how power relations and social networks impact the participatory planning process. I used a livelihoods approach to capture formal and informal spaces and found that marginalized households were not equally disadvantaged. I also found that households can lack power at the structural and organizational levels, but find agency through social relations and intrinsic household capabilities in pursuit of meeting daily needs. But first a bit of context—the vulnerability context according to the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework—is needed.

3.7 Marginal Land Settlement Although urbanization is encroaching dramatically on the Yamuna River floodplain in Delhi, a great deal of cultivation persists. There were some areas where farmed plots have succumbed to the shadow of newly constructed mid- and high-rise apartment blocks, others occupy land beneath elevated metro lines, electrical towers, or adjacent wastewater ducts (Fig. 3.7a–f). But, wherever land has been vacant and accessible, farmers have occupied it.

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.Fig. 3.7 a Urban agriculture with newly constructed apartment buildings in the background; b beneath active construction of a new metro line; c another site where urban agriculture faces newly constructed apartment buildings in the background; d beneath new electricity towers; e urban agriculture “integrated” with newly constructed (waste?) water pipes; f removed from a new “public” (but unpopulated) park

3.7.1 Pilot Study Selecting the farming community in this book came about based on the pilot study I collaborated on in mid-2011. We were a team of three set out to explore urban agriculture in the rapidly developing megacity of Delhi (Cook et al. 2015). Applying an ethnographic approach called the Rapid Assessment Process or RAP (Beebe 2001), we collected a variety of data, which included conducting semi-structured interviews with 35 farm households across eight sites, spanning approximately 25 miles (40 km) along the floodplain of the Yamuna River from north to south through Delhi including the peri-urban boundaries (Fig. 3.8). Excerpt from ‘Urban Agriculture in Delhi, India,’ research blog post ‘Ready to Go’ https://urbanagdelhi.wordpress.com/ written by J. Brett, pilot study faculty advisor We’ve gotten off to what feels like a pretty slow start given our short time for work (as is to be expected when landing in a new country with very few contacts) but today we took a leap forward with our two interviews. The first was with Sunny of Swechha Foundation (“a youth-run, youth-focused NGO operating from Delhi, India, engaged in the issues of environment and social development” [http://www.swechha.in/]) who was recommended to us by Ashish of ICLEI. While they are not involved in urban agriculture (almost no one is), being involved with the river as an environmental issue in their curriculum means they interface with the urban agriculturists along the river. One of his key points was that agriculture in the peri-urban areas is under threat arising from the government’s policy to encourage and facilitate industrial development over agriculture. Broad swaths of farm land are condemned under a British era law known as the Land Acquisition Act which states loosely that the government has the right to take land that could be used for more productive purposes (theoretically compensating land owners) and transferring it to those who will develop that higher value enterprise. Some of that development is infrastructure (Delhi Metro, expressways) and some of it is private enterprise. In consequence, the Yamuna River, one of the most sacred rivers in India is a “black water” river; it is devoid of life.

3.7 Marginal Land Settlement

Fig. 3.8 Pilot study context map and interview sites (Cook et al. 2015)

An important discussion we are having among ourselves concerns the role of UA [urban agriculture] in megacities like Delhi. Our best estimates at present suggest there are perhaps 1,000 farming families along the river as it passes through Delhi (we’ll be trying to confirm that number); what we’ve seen of the plots so far is that they appear quite small, less than a hectare: How much food can they produce against the needs of a city of 17.5 million people? We’re finding ourselves wondering about the reality of UA as a significant contributor of food to large populations. Much of the literature and much of the attitude in the US holds out UA as a major effort in the sustainability of cities; in a city as densely populated as Delhi where each person has an average of 100 square feet, most of it paved where can they realistically produce the quantities

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of food necessary? We’ll be thinking hard about this question over the next several weeks. From the pilot study our team found that farm sizes varied somewhat; however, in general, the typical total land farmed by a household was 11 bigha—slightly less than two acres or three-quarter hectares).4 The typical household size was six to ten people, and both men and women actively participated in farm-related activities. Most families lived on the land they farmed, although some did own a house or property elsewhere in Delhi or a nearby village. The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) was the primary landowner. Many farmers mentioned that permanent residence was officially illegal, but that did not prevent them from building housing structures. Houses on the farms ranged from temporary reed shelters to sturdy mud houses. Despite annual monsoons, farmers were able to grow high-value vegetable crops nearly year-round. Multiple cropping seasons provided a steady source of income, and few farmers looked for other means of employment between harvests. Most interviewed households grew produce primarily for sale and hired temporary laborers to help at various times throughout the year. Once crops were harvested, most were sold through one or more of the many distribution options available to Delhi farmers. Most farmers utilized at least two distribution options, but a few reported up to four. These characteristics indicated that Yamuna farmers had access to diverse livelihood assets; although they represented a vulnerable, low-income group living on marginalized land they were not the extreme poor. Many Yamuna floodplain occupants were migrants—but not recently migrated. as described in one of the pilot interviews: A middle aged man said he and his family had been living near the Badarpur border initially, but the land had been developed. They then went to Uttam Nagar and sold fruits. But they were running a loss so they had to leave. They had taken a room on rent, but it was too expensive. They came here to Yamuna Khadir through a family member who was also at Badarpur border and had later come to the floodplain. We stood for a brief time in the shade of a tree talking about the sporadic migration of his family to this current location on the Yamuna River floodplain where they rented a plot of land to cultivate vegetables and sell at the local market. The process of finding a livelihood that generated enough income to match living expenses was by trial and error. The dwelling they inhabited was allowed by the landlord as part of the rent paid for the plot.

The first pilot project farm visit was by invitation by a family holding a 150year lease from the government to farm on the floodplain. The family lived in a co-housing situation in a nearby district, which comprised a multi-unit residential building where extended and multi-generational family members lived. The farm provided them fresh vegetables with only the cost of inputs and transport via a short rickshaw ride. Through the pilot interviews, we found that the people living and working along the Yamuna River identified as a collective group based on membership in the Delhi 4

Bigha are a commonly used unit of land measurement. The size of a bigha varies by region, but in Delhi 6 bigha is approximately 1 acre or 0.4 hectares.

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Peasants Cooperative Multipurpose Society (the Society),5 sharing a common profession as farmers, and representing households of similar social status. However, the collective lacked capacity to respond to DDA development pressures. Yamuna River floodplain farmers were at risk for land eviction, yet they had not actively mobilized or engaged in the on-going planning process targeting development of the land abutting the Yamuna River. This despite the size of the tenant farming population. From the pilot study, I used geographic information systems (GIS) to estimate that there were approximately 2,500 farming households occupying the land transecting the length of the Yamuna River within the boundary of Delhi. Compounding this, farmers faced unpredictable climatic changes as a result of increased variability and intensity of flooding events.

3.7.2 Selecting a Site: Identifying a Community Based on the findings from that early pilot project, I selected a typical case site: Yamuna Khadir, located on the eastern side of the Yamuna River immediately west of the Mayur Vihar neighborhood, encompassing approximately 1,500 acres (Fig. 3.9). At the time, construction had started on an elevated metro line through the site. The site had also recently been impacted by new highway construction and earlier phases of metro construction, as well as development to house the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Consequently, some households had already lost some or all of the land they farmed. Active metro construction and planning for future development of the land served as a catalyst for manifestation of power in relations in Yamuna Khadir; such an unusual circumstance was worth studying in-depth. Initially, I didn’t seek out information about the metro construction because I wanted to know what was going on from the perspective of the farmers—to see if I could understand through their transmissions of knowledge. This was in following Paulo Freire’s instruction, “From the investigator’s point of view, the important thing is to detect the starting point at which the people visualize the ‘given’ and to verify whether or not during the process of investigation any transformation has occurred in their way of perceiving reality” (Freire 2007). Perceived reality has to be weighed against lived experience, for example during the pilot study: A farmer from a rural village said he told a relative farming here [Yamuna Khadir] about his problems with animals destroying the crops. The relative told him to come here with his family. It flooded when he first came, but now his family loves it. They came just before the flood, which coincided with the 2010 Commonwealth Games. They had to go to the road

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In 1949, the Delhi Improvement Trust allotted more than 5,000 acres of land along the Yamuna to the Society. The Society parcelled out the land to Society members by giving them the right to cultivate it. In 1991, the DDA became the successor of the Delhi Improvement Trust and, consequently, the authority over the land along the Yamuna (refer to Chapter I: Introduction for more details). From my understanding, Society membership is now irrelevant in determining land tenure; however, past beneficiaries continue to associate themselves as members.

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Fig. 3.9 Map of research site

to avoid the water, and they felt very bad because the authorities came and razed their huts. Their huts have only been razed once since then.

I learned later that the police had vacated the area so that the Commonwealth Games could be held. That included destroying all informal dwellings. At that time, some farmers had decided to return to their rural villages, which left their plots vacant to new tenants. It is unlikely the new tenants were informed by the person leasing the land to them of any history or future potential for displacement. Transmission was unreliable.

3.7.3 Whose Land Is It Anyway? When I commenced fieldwork in 2013, the site I had selected was centrally located along the Yamuna River floodplain. The metro construction would link Mihar Vihar on the east side of the Yamuna River with Sarai Kale Khan on the west side. The metro construction traversing the agrarian floodplain provided a catalyst for me to investigate what farmers knew about the construction, what they were doing in response, and how their social networks influenced those decisions. My fieldwork was interrupted when I returned to the United States for four months to wait for a

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second grant to begin. The annual monsoon season coincided the period of time that I was home. It was a particularly severe year with floods inundating the kilometer wide floodplain, nearly reaching to the elevated expressway boundary. The farmers went to live in tents along the road, retreated to their village homes, or stayed with relatives in the city while they waited for the water to recede. While I was away from the field, my research assistants continued conducting interviews. About one third of interviews were conducted during that unusually long 2013 monsoon season. Some farmers worked in construction or found other work as day laborers and some sat idle with nothing to do while they waited. Farmers were keenly aware that they cultivated and lived on a very flood prone area. When it flooded (annually), they moved near the road. After the water dissipated, they returned to the same plot—with a few families never returning from their home villages and a few who discovered the landlord had negotiated a higher rental rate with another family in their absence. Farmers were accustomed to the annual floods and planned around it. Many saved enough money to sustain themselves and their families so that they didn’t need to look for temporary work in the case the land was inundated. Natural events can have positive and negative impacts. Biotic systems often depend on disturbance such as floods along floodplains that destroy existing vegetation but restore nutrients to the soil. Natural cycles such as this become constructed as hazards when they unequally burden people. At the same time, natural cycles afford protection to those willing to endure the risks against competition from those with greater means. And this was true of the Yamuna River floodplain for the majority of its human settlement history. But now development has become a constant and largely unknown threat. The 2021 Master for Delhi categorizes the Yamuna River floodplain as an ‘urbanisable area’ (Fig. 3.10). Lack of land ownership—‘landlords’ themselves rented plots from the government—compounded the insecure tenure of the occupant farmers. With the metro construction progressing, there were cases where farmers were just days or a week from harvest and were evicted without notice. After British Independence, the Yamuna River floodplain in Delhi was viewed as an economic burden as an un-developable wasteland. That wasteland, three generations later, is now populated with families leasing the land who have turned it into highly productive small-scale farms, contributing a substantial amount of fresh produce to local markets (Cook et al. 2015). But land values have risen exponentially and the urban population is bursting. So ‘urbanisable’ has replaced the wasteland terminology. But ‘urbanisable’ for whom? And by whom? The normative conception of citizenship in Delhi is that of the homeowner (Rao 2010). But it is estimated that there is a shortage of 1.13 million homes in the city. With a burgeoning population exceeding 24 million, three-quarters of households live in unplanned settlements (Ahmad et al. 2013). The farmers in this case study were not just an invisible population in the eyes of Delhi, but, in the perspective of some of those with power and influence, they represented unsavory aspects of Delhi—with its recently gained world-class reputation. More importantly, the farmers are void of power at the most basic level: that of labor. They are not viewed as farmers, but encroachers; informal in the eyes of the state.

Fig. 3.10 Master Plan 2021 for Delhi showing the Yamuna River floodplain categorized as an ‘urbanisable’ land use (Delhi Development Authority, https:// dda.org.in)

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As a city interacting with the global community, Delhi has hosted a handful of mega events including the 2010 Commonwealth Games (CWG). The aspiration to become a global metropolis and a world-class city, CWG prompted a ‘Slum-free Delhi 2010’ campaign (Rao 2010). This led to beautification schemes and large-scale infrastructure and urban development, resulting in demolition of poor settlements and eviction of entire communities. It is estimated that 45,000 homes were destroyed in the area of the Yamuna River in preparation for CWG (Ahmad et al. 2013). The DDA has policies for demolition of dilapidated structures and resettlement of displaced people, but resettlement requires households to be registered with the city government and to hold a title deed stating they have occupied the place for a certain number of years. In the 1980s, the demand for relocation became too great, and the government severely limited relocation assistance for slum dwellers (Ahmad et al. 2013). Then in 2000, the Supreme Court instructed the government to stop relocation programs stating: “The promise of free land at the tax payer’s cost, in place of a jhuggi [impermanent structure] is a proposal which attracts many land grabbers. Rewarding an encroacher on public land with a free alternative site is like giving a reward to a pickpocket (Supreme Court, cf. Padhi 2007: 77)” (Kundu 2004; Rao 2010). Held against the long-term tenure of many Yamuna floodplain farmers, the question remains: Whose land is it anyway?

3.7.4 Yamuna River The Yamuna River is the primary source of drinking water for Delhi, as well as for the many cities, towns and villages sited along its route (Paliwal et al. 2007). But as it gives, it also receives. It is currently rated as one of the most—perhaps the most—polluted rivers in the world (Misra 2010). With 42% comprising alluvial soils, Yamuna basin is also highly fertile with high food grain yields from Haryana to Western Uttar Pradesh (Central Pollution Control Board 2006). Geographically, the Yamuna River originates from the Yamunotri glacier near the Banderpunch peaks of the lower Himalayas in the state of Uttaranchal of northern India. Stretching 855 miles (1,376 km), it is the largest tributary of the Ganga [Ganges] River, converging at Allahabad. The entire length from origin to confluence is used for various human activities. Indian mythology describes Yamuna as a holy river and various pilgrimage centers dot the banks including Yamunotri, Paonta Sahib, Mathura and Allahabad. The Taj Mahal stands stoically on its banks. India receives an average 46 inches (117 cm) of rain per year, making it one of the wettest countries in the world. But there are only 40 average annual days of rain, which is concentrated during the three month monsoon spanning July to September. During monsoon season, the Yamuna river receives 80% of the rainfall in its catchment area according to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), 1999–2000 report (Paliwal et al. 2007). The high volume of water causes the river to breach its banks filling its wide and vast floodplain aka it floods. Non-monsoon lowflow conditions are seen during most of the year, including stretches that become dry,

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and are critical for overall water quality. During the non-monsoon period, the water flow is further reduced significantly through diversions from river for extensive use for irrigation and drinking water. Irrigation is an important use of Yamuna river water, and the Central Pollution Control Board estimates 92% of water used for irrigating about 12.3 million hectares of surrounding land (2006). In short, the Yamuna river experiences high water volumes for a short period, but for much of the year, it has very little or no water flow. The Yamuna river enters Delhi approximately one mile (1.5 km) above Palla village and leaves Delhi after a stretch of 15.5 miles (25 km) at Jaitpur, downstream of the Okhla Bridge. Above the first Delhi diversion, Wazirabad barrage, the river flows at approximately 49 feet per second (15 m/s). At the barrage, 36 feet per second (11.1 m/s) is extracted for human uses (Paliwal et al. 2007). After that, Najafgarh drain empties wastewater into the river at at a rate of 87 feet per second (26.5 m/s), after which the river flows at less than 3.3 feet per second (