Book Reviews 181

Swapna Banerjee-Guha (Ed.), Accumulation by Dispossession: Trans-

formative Cities in the New Global Order, New Delhi, SAGE Publications,
2010, 268 pp., `596, ISBN 978-81-321-0313-4.
DOI: 10.1177/0049085714561848

The book under review is an edited volume on the processes of capital accu-
mulation driving the processes of dispossession, displacement and exploitation
of the poorest in cities. All the chapters in the volume are passionate pieces, advo-
cating the rights of the marginalised poor. They describe and attempt to grasp the
contemporary changes in various facets of the urban landscapes. These changes
are also seen in the contexts of several Indian and foreign cities. While the other
Indian cities have also found a place in the volume, Mumbai is the most favoured
subject of study by the contributors.
The book draws its title from the phrase ‘accumulation by dispossession’ coined
by David Harvey in his book The New Imperialism (2003). Harvey argued that
accumulation of capital is essentially accompanied by processes of dispossession
and exploitation. In explaining his use of this phrase, Harvey sought to dispel the
notion that primitive accumulation was only ‘a stage’ in the past. He contends that
the word ‘primitive’ in the term was misleading and that the present day global
processes of accumulation continue to be about dispossession. He proposed that
contemporary processes of capitalist accumulation are associated with neolib-
eralism (or new imperialism) in the same way that primitive accumulation was
associated with colonialism. It is this argument that forms the axle of this volume.
Harvey is the ‘big name’ contributor to the volume, but almost all he has said
in his chapter is only a repetition of his arguments elsewhere. Even though the
title of his chapter, ‘The Right to the City: From Capital Surplus to Accumulation
by Dispossession’ suggests that he is approaching the problem of accumulation
from the angle of another celebrated concept ‘The Right to the City’, he never
quite deals with it here. Nevertheless, for those interested in a Marxist analysis
of urbanisation, this chapter remains a useful distillation of Harvey’s ideas. The
chapter is ambitious in the temporal and geographical expanse of its subject
matter. It includes Harvey’s earlier thesis about the scale of urbanisation and
about urbanisation as a process to harness unemployed surplus capital and surplus
labour. He records ‘Haussmannisation’ of Paris between 1853 and 1868 in some
detail, and the emulation of Baron Haussmann in New York in 1940s by Robert
Moses. He discerns similar trends of neoliberal processes driving urban transfor-
mation in various cities across the globe. Notably, in this chapter he does pause
to comment briefly on urbanisation in India and the dispossession and displace-
ment of India’s poorest. Its presence in this volume also establishes that although
the case for placing any enquiry of the urbanisation process in the local context
is strong, a sound theory can travel well and may even help scholars avoid the
pitfalls of parochialism in the name of localisation.
The chapter by Saskia Sassen ‘The Global City: Strategic Site, New Frontier’
seems to address the concerns contained within the subtitle of the volume.

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182 Book Reviews

In the new global order, it seems to suggest, the frontiers are not defined by the
boundaries of the nation-states and the balance of power between them but rather
by the frontier of the Global Urban. The Global City, as explained by Sassen, is
no longer just a localised place but a strategic site enmeshed and integrated in
a transnational geography, from which capital flows are being controlled. Like
Harvey, Sassen is interested in questions of scale of transactions in the cities
that she identifies as Global Cities; she also pays attention to the intensity and
direction of these economic transactions mainly in finance, trade and investment.
She comments very broadly and abstractly, discerning global trends in margin-
alisation and new class formation. Her project is essentially one of creating a
cognitive tool for analysing contemporary forms of urban processes occurring
in and centred around the Global Cities. As (transnational) firms of Chinese and
Indian origin forage and compete with each other for control over African labour
power, natural resources and markets, it would have been useful if Sassen had
clearly set out the criteria she used for inclusion or non-inclusion of cities into the
list of Global Cities. Her discussion is, however, indicative of how her conception
of ‘Global City’ might be employed to frame a useful problématique to imagining
a ‘Just City’ (Fainstein, 2010).
The chapter ‘Global Capital, Neoliberal Politics and Terrains of Resistance in
Vienna’ sticks out like a sore thumb. The only thing common here, and author Heinz
Nissel takes pains to point it out, is that neoliberalism has adversely impacted the
fortunes of the relative poor in the developed countries too—widening the income
and class disparities there like in the developing countries. However, his analysis
of disparities in Vienna is too stretched by the standards of the developing world.
In fact, as Nissel shows, Vienna as a Global City has more of a role in controlling
the new member states of the European Union. This and other historical reasons
due to which the abjectness of poverty has been avoided by the Viennese should
have received more attention from the author for it to be of interest to urban
scholars interested in the developing world in general and India in particular.
Dhaka, another non-Indian city that has a chapter dedicated to it in the volume,
is closer home in more ways than one. ‘Globalisation and Transformation of
Dhaka City’ by Nazrul Islam and Salma Shafi describes well the challenges posed
by globalisation to Bangladesh, a country born in 1971 as one of the poorest coun-
tries in the world. The problems are compounded by geographical limitations and
challenges posed by an evidently weak civil society. The narrative of the chapter
is simple and straightforward, but it fits the pattern well.
‘Hi-tech Hyderabad and the Urban Poor: Reformed Out of the City’ focuses
its inquiry on the land question. The dispossession of the poor in Hyderabad
through eviction in the name of reforms is chronicled in great detail in this chapter
by Umesh Paklapati. Like the Dhaka chapter, this too, is an interesting narration
that could have been much more valuable with some attempt at analysing the
processes that have been described so well.
Solomon Benjamin, in his contribution ‘Manufacturing Neoliberalism: Life-
styling Indian Urbanity’, raises important questions regarding recent trend of
elite formations (so-called citizen’s groups) staking a claim to shape the cities
with a vision that decidedly excludes the poor residents. The chapter focuses on
Bangalore in its discussion of the neoliberal Urban Reforms Agenda joined by
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Book Reviews 183

various international monetary organisations and implemented in India through

the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission. In arguably the best piece
of the volume, Benjamin paints a picture of the situation that is both empirically
and theoretically rich. Benjamin indicates that this is not a city-specific phenom-
enon but widely prevalent fallout of the neoliberal policy of urban renewal in
many cities in India. The concern regarding middle class and elite groups’ activ-
ism playing a role in dispossession of the poor has been echoed in almost all
other India-centric chapters. Although the chapter makes no mention of Delhi, it
provides valuable insight into the activities of the elite resident welfare bodies in
Delhi where they have wielded immense clout.
On an aside, Benjamin and Marie-Helene Zerah both use the metaphor of
Trojan horse for different claims of the elite, which hide their real intent of disci-
plining and dispossessing the masses. Zerah’s chapter inquires into the political
economy of governance and access to civic amenities in Mumbai. But it is Sharit
Bhowmik’s chapter, ‘Urban Public Space and Urban Poor’ that brings to life the
narrative of contestations for space in Mumbai. He describes the struggles of the
urban poor in the city and how they fail to retain any claims over public spaces in
the city. He also engages with the differences in perception of nature and uses of
public space by different classes. In one section in the article on slum redevelop-
ment, he erroneously deploys the term ‘public spaces’ when he probably meant
public land. The chapter by Darryl D’Monte focuses on Urban Transport projects
in Mumbai and aligns his questions to the larger questions of the book on many
counts for a city grown in size. His research is meticulous and points to his jour-
nalistic antecedents, but the geographical peculiarities of Mumbai may limit the
insights for scholars studying other cities in India. The chapter could have done
with a good conclusion.
The last chapter of the book is also on Mumbai. Here, Banerjee-Guha convinc-
ingly establishes the fact of the swift transformation of Indian cities and displays
skilfully the routes of progression of the same. The data that she uses to bolster her
claim show the aggression and magnitude of these processes to be breathtaking.
Although the title of the chapter claims that she is ‘Revisiting Accumulation by
Dispossession’, she ends up more or less recapitulating the discussions thus far.
In the final analysis, the volume adds nuances to the theoretical conceptualisa-
tion of urbanisation as a result of accumulation and its intricate relationship with
the dispossession of the masses. It is extremely valuable in adding finer strokes
of contemporary developments to the big Marxist narrative that holds very well.

References
Fainstein, S.S. (2010). The just city. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Harvey, D. (2003). The new imperialism. New York: Oxford University Press.

Ghazala Jamil
Associate Fellow
Council for Social Development, New Delhi
ghazalajamil@gmail.com
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