Security Guards and Urban Territories in Delhi, India
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Filtering Class through Space : Security Guards and Urban Territories in Delhi, India SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA AND TO THE FACULTY OF PARIS SORBONNE CITÉ BY DAMIEN CARRIERE IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Under the supervision of: VINAY GIDWANI AND VERONIQUE DUPONT DECEMBER 2018 Thèse de doctorat de L’Université du Minnesota et de L’Université Sorbonne Paris Cité Préparée à l’Université Paris Diderot École doctorale 382 : Économies, espaces, sociétés, civilisations : pensée critique, politiques et pratiques sociales Centre d'études en sciences sociales sur les mondes africains, américains et asiatiques (CESSMA) Filtering Class through Space : Security Guards and Urban Territories in Delhi, India Par Damien Carrière Thèse de doctorat de Géographie Dirigée par Véronique Dupont et Vinay Gidwani Présentée et soutenue à Minneapolis le 11 décembre 2018 Présidente du jury : Professeure Nagar Richa, Université du Minnesota Rapporteurs : Professeure Deboulet Agnès, Université Paris 8 Vincennes Saint- Denis Professeur associé Goldman Michael, Université du Minnesota Examinateurs : Professeure associée Morange Marianne, Université Paris 7 Diderot Professeur Braun Bruce, Université du Minnesota Direction : Mme Dupont Véronique, directrice de recherche à l'IRD, CESSMA Université Paris 7 Diderot Professeur Gidwany Vinay K., Université du Minnesota Department of Geography, Environment & Society, University of Minnesota 414 Social Sciences Building 267 19th Ave S Minneapolis, MN 55455 Centre d’Étude en Sciences Sociales sur les Mondes Africains, Américains et Asiatiques, Université Paris Diderot Case courrier 7017 75205 PARIS © 2018 Damien Carrière Damien Carrière – Filtering Class through Space: Security Guards and Urban Territories in Delhi, India – 2018 Acknowledgments I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my two advisors, Research Director Dr. Véronique Dupont in Paris, and Prof. Vinay Gidwani in Minneapolis, for their help and their support during my Ph.D study. I am grateful for their patience, their trust and their dedication. I am particularly indebted to the patience and thoroughly precise readings of Véronique Dupont, and to the steadfast institutional and personal support of Vinay Gidwani. If I could foretell my last hour in due time, his letter of recommendation could get me admitted into heaven. There she would discuss and improve upon the methodology of the Book of Life. I benefited from the help of two immense scholars and mentors and I hope to have learned from their respective strengths. The earthly errors in this dissertation are mine only. Beside my advisors, I would like to thank Prof Agnes Deboulet, Prof Marianne Morange, Prof. Michael Goldman and Prof. Bruce Braun, for accepting to seat on this committee. I am particularly grateful to Prof. Richa Nagar who accepted to chair it. I would like to express my particular appreciations for the mentorship of prof. Bruce Braun and Michael Goldman who accepted me in Directed Readings before becoming members of my prelim committee. Prof Goldman and professor Morange, joined by professor Remy Allain, also accepted to seat in the Comité de Suivit Individuel in Paris. For my fieldwork I have received the help and advice of Partha Mukhopadhyay in the Centre for Policy Research, and of Awadhendra Sharan in the Center for the Study of Developing Societies. I am very grateful to the CESSMA, which has welcomed me in its rank and funded three years of ideal research conditions. The main fieldwork research could not have been conducted the way it was without the support of AIIS, and the preliminary fieldwork was made possible by the Global Alliance of UMN. I would like to extend a particular thanks to my hosts institutions in India, the Center for the Study of Developing Society for the preliminary fieldwork, and the Center for Policy Research for my longer i Damien Carrière – Filtering Class through Space: Security Guards and Urban Territories in Delhi, India – 2018 stay. The financial support of the geography department of UMN, of Council Of Graduate Students of UMN, of the CESSMA and of the College of Liberal Arts permitted me to attend many conferences as well as the RC21 Summer School, and to exchange my ideas to my peers. I spent a long time in many universities, and there I was blessed with meeting many exceptional mentors and teachers. I think it is appropriate here to mention in particular the impact that Prof Rémy Allain, Prof Jennifer Robinson, Prof Keya Ganguly, Prof George Henderson, Prof Reinhold Martin, or Prof Jean Pihan have had on my intellectual trajectory and on my life. For this work, I am grateful for the thought-provoking readings of Dr. Sudeshna Mitra, Caroline Michon and Etha Williams. I am also grateful for the thorough proofreading efforts of Courtney Gildersleeve, Clara Chevalier, Amita Rana, Dr. Sarbani and Basit Umer, Etha Williams and Charumati Haran, and the picture of Barkha Bhatnagar. Priyam Tripathy, has not only helped the proofreading and challenged many ideas, but also contributed in the data collection, and at every step of the way. This dissertation is a bit hers. I would like to thank my research assistant Niti Jha and wish her luck in all her endeavors. I am not sure anything would be, or would have been, possible at all without the solar efficiency of Sara Braun and the kindness of Jodie Larson and Bonnie Williams. In Paris and in Delhi this work would have been much harder without the kind and generous logistical support of Blandine and Xavier Dupont, Pauline Puig and Bernard Flouzat, Yannis Abgraal, and Aditi Rao. Few people have the immense luck of having two families. I would like to thank Brigitte and Philippe Carrière, for helping me bring this—and everything else—to the light, and for being ever present when the road gets rough. And on a rough road, I was blessed to meet Lydia McAnerney and John Orrison, whose warm house has become a home. To you all I give my love. ii Damien Carrière – Filtering Class through Space: Security Guards and Urban Territories in Delhi, India – 2018 I would like to express my kindest thoughts to Cyrille Arquié, Maylis Rabaud and Olivier Arquié, Clarisse and Alexandre Baron, and their respective families, as well as to Rebecca and Andrew Orrison. Clara Chevalier, always. Chloé Leclère, my bike professor, Christine Ithurbide, and all those who know who they are, and there are many. Priyam, will you keep walking by my side? You make me happy when skies are gray... iii Damien Carrière – Filtering Class through Space: Security Guards and Urban Territories in Delhi, India – 2018 This work is for the students whom I had the honor and joy to teach. iv Damien Carrière – Filtering Class through Space: Security Guards and Urban Territories in Delhi, India – 2018 Abstracts Titre en français : La Ville au filtre des gardiens de sécurité – Domination et territoires urbains, Delhi. Résumé : Les gardiens de sécurité sont présents en grand nombre dans les quartiers des classes moyennes et supérieures de Delhi et dans les centres commerciaux. Je demande : quels effets ces gardiens de sécurité ont-ils sur la ville de Delhi ? Un quart de million d’hommes sont déployés dans ses rues, sans qu’ils parviennent à enrayer la criminalité contre les femmes. Il apparaît que les gardiens de sécurité ont essentiellement pour rôle de marquer le territoire qu’ils surveillent comme étant celui des classes moyennes et supérieures. Le premier chapitre expose en détail la méthodologie de ce travail. Le second propose une « phénoménologie des gardiens de sécurité », c’est-à-dire une description de qui ils sont et du travail qu’ils font. Ce travail tend à remettre en cause la notion d’espace public. Le troisième chapitre s’intéresse au cadre légal et montre ses contradictions internes. Non seulement les lois ne sont pas cohérentes, mais elles sont surtout ignorées. Cela ne doit pas être perçu comme un affaiblissement de l’État mais comme un renforcement de la position des classes moyennes et supérieures dans le contrôle de la ville. Dans le quatrième chapitre je propose de placer les gardiens de sécurité dans l’économie politique de Delhi. Je montre comment ils participent de retarder les crises du système capitaliste notamment en absorbant une partie de la main d’œuvre surnuméraire. Le système qui permet aux gardiens de sécurité de travailler repose sur une division genrée du travail qu’ils contribuent à accentuer en renforçant la domination masculine sur les rues de Delhi. Mots clefs : Delhi, gardiens de sécurité, sécurité privée, espace publique, Lefebvre, production de l’espace, ethnographie, géographie du travail, capitalisme et sécurité, travailleurs d’interface. v Damien Carrière – Filtering Class through Space: Security Guards and Urban Territories in Delhi, India – 2018 Title : Filtering Class through Space : Security Guards and Urban Territories in Delhi, India Abstract : Security guards have become a fixture of a city like Delhi. They stand on duty in every upper and middle-class neighborhood and in every mall. I ask : what are the effects of security guards on the city of Delhi? A quarter of a million men are deployed in Delhi’s streets, and they are not successful in stopping crimes against women. It appears that the role of security guards is to mark the territory that they keep under watch as belonging to the upper and middle-classes. The first chapter exposes in detail the methodology employed for data collection. The second one proposes a “phenomenology of security guards”, that is, a close description of who they are and the work they do. Their work interrogates on the making and unmaking of public space. The third chapter pays attention to the legal framework and shows that the laws framing the work of security guards are neither coherent, nor respected.