Lived reality of elite neighbourhoods: geographies of inequality in Delhi

Abstract

This paper is an ethnographic account of elite neighbourhoods in Delhi. It unpacks the lived realities of these neighbourhoods by studying how elite-ness is both constituted and contested within gated residential areas and other public spaces of Delhi. It argues that elites extend the unequal world they inhabit outside their gated residences by identifying certain public spaces for their leisure activities, especially shopping malls, leaving the neighbourhood community centres or RWA clubs to cater to non-elite residents. It also focuses on the narratives of the domestic staff employed in elite households, who too inhabit the public spaces within these neighbourhoods, including parks, streets, and markets. In this way, the paper draws out the class contestations within elite neighbourhoods and explains how these spaces become sites of class fractions and factions as they are marked by the politics of who a ‘real’ elite is. As such, this paper is an account of how class exclusionary boundaries are drawn and subverted by elites and non-elites both in private (gated neighbourhoods) and public spaces (parks, shopping malls), thus bringing attention to the fractured realities of elite neighbourhoods.