GeographicalJournal-2022-Bathla-ExtendedurbanisationandthepoliticsofuncertaintyThecontestedpathwayso
Academic article by Nitin Bathla (Architecture, ETH Zurich) examining how uncertainty is produced, managed and commodified during extended urbanisation via highway corridors in India, using the Dwarka Expressway (Delhi–Gurgaon) as a focal case. The paper argues that the expressway’s pathway overlays pre-existing land claims and ‘plotted’ settlements, producing prolonged legal, social and infrastructural uncertainty that different actors (state, developers, middle-class investor associations like DXPWA, and marginal communities such as New Palam Vihar residents) exploit or resist. Empirical basis: ethnographic fieldwork (2018–2020), geospatial data and court archives; documentary film Not Just Roads (2020) accompanies the research. Key claims: uncertainty is both produced by state and market practices and productive for marginal claims to urban space; ‘governing through uncertainty’ and commodification of eventualities shape corridor urbanisation outcomes.
Questions this document answers
29 km
2008
2018–2020
Not Just Roads (2020)
3 km/day (2013–2014); 12 km/day (2014–2015); 16.6 km/day (2015–); ~28 km/day (2017–2018); >30 km/day (2018–2019); 34 km/day (2020–2021)