Changing Contours of Legitimacy in Neighbourhoods: Reflections from a Town in North Kerala

Abstract

Drawing predominantly on the ethnography of two neighbourhoods in Thalassery in North Kerala, India, Abraham explores the ways in which the neighbourhood is a site of legitimacy in everyday life and the transformations that have taken place in this respect. She asks, how does a neighbourhood influence the everyday lives of people? Given dramatic changes in the nature of residential neighbourhoods in Kerala, and following other social, political and economic changes, how has the social control and legitimacy garnered in the neighbourhood changed? Abraham explores competing and conflicting sources of legitimacy at the level of the neighbourhood, including some of the events through which legitimacy may come to be eroded.