Contested Homelands: Politics of Space and Identity

by Nazima Parveen

Overview

This book argues that the changing character of Muslim community and their living space in Delhi is a product of historical processes. The discourse of homeland and the realities of Partition established the notion of 'Muslim-dominated areas' as 'exclusionary' and 'contested' zones. These localities turned out to be those pockets where the dominant ideas of nation had to be engineered, materialized and practiced. The book makes an attempt to revisit these complexities by investigating community-space relationship in colonial and postcolonial Delhi. It raises two fundamental questions:
How did community and space relation come to be defined on religious lines?
In what ways were 'Muslim-dominated' areas perceived as contested zones?
Invoking the ideas of homeland as a useful vantage point to enter into the wider discourse around the conceptualization of space, the book suggests that the relation between Muslim communities and their living spaces has evolved out of a long process of politicization and communalization of space in Delhi.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789389000900
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	02/25/2021
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.86(h) x 0.92(d)

About the Author

Nazima Parveen is an independent research scholar. The focus of her work is the rights of ethnic and religious minorities, communalization of space and the politics of urban transformation in colonial and postcolonial South Asia. Parveen completed her PhD from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. She has worked as an assistant professor at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. Parveen has also worked in the UK, India and Nepal between 200. She has worked on different UK government and EU-funded research programmes during 2002–2007.
She was the recipient of ICSSR Post-Doctoral Fellowship 2018, Royal Society of New Zealand Doctoral Scholarship 2013–2016, ICSSR-CSDS Doctoral Fellowship programme 2010–2012 and ASIA Fellows Awards 2008–2009. She also writes opinion pieces on current affairs for digital news portals.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1: Colonial Encounters, Identities, Conflicts and Space: A Background, 1809-1939
2: Contested Homelands: Territorial Nations and the Idea of Pakistan, 1940-1947
3: Demarcated Space: 'Muslim Refugee Camps' and 'Muslim Zones' in Delhi, 1947-1954
4: Caste, Class and Religion of Meat: Contest and Conflicts in Muslim Localities, 1955-1970
5: Reorganization of Muslim Space: Clearance, Resettlement and Redevelopment, 1970-1977
Conclusion