Unveiling Dalit perspectives: evictions in informal settlements in India
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Abstract
Urban evictions are a key feature of city-making in India. Yet very little research has examined how caste intersects with urban governance in shaping who gets displaced and who can claim space in cities. This dissertation investigates the social and economic consequences of forced evictions on Dalit residents living in Delhi’s informal settlements. Furthermore, the study examines how evictions shape these residents' sense of belonging in the city. Although the current literature on informal settlements treats residents as a homogeneous group, this study argues that caste is used as an exclusionary tool in producing housing insecurity and displacement. Using an Interpretive Phenomenological Approach (IPA), this study draws on ten in-depth interviews with Dalit residents living in an informal settlement in Delhi, India. The study draws on Critical Urban Theory, Subaltern Urbanism, and a revisiting of Stoke’s Theory of Slums to understand the interplay of urban governance, caste attitudes, and state power in shaping urban evictions. By interpreting how participants make sense of their experiences of evictions, the study explores the socioeconomic consequences of evictions and the ways the participants build and negotiate their belonging in the city.
The findings illuminate the role of caste in producing structural vulnerability and exclusion in the city. Participants recounted how repeated displacement resulted in the loss of home, material belongings, and documents, and in exclusion from state-sponsored benefits. Evictions also disrupted social networks and community bonds and constrained opportunities for upward social mobility. Despite these evictions, participants exhibited a strong sense of belonging to the informal settlement and the city. Through collective resistance, solidarity, labor, and acts of returning and rebuilding their homes, participants demonstrated ways to claim their space in the city.
This dissertation argues that urban evictions in India are not simply administrative or legal actions, but are deeply embedded in the politics of caste, urban governance, and spatial exclusion. By centering Dalit perspectives, this dissertation contributes to the scholarship on housing insecurity and urban inequality while emphasizing the need to incorporate caste into urban theory and policy discussions on stable housing in India.
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2026