Globalizing issue networks & hidden transcripts : A Case Study on the Subordinate in Mumbai

Civil society organizations are increasingly operating in the ‘middle ground’, attempting to incorporate the dominant elite and forces of globalization, and the radically local resistance of individuals and communities. This thesis is an attempt to further understand the dynamics of globalization and social change, from the vantage point of the most marginalized of the urban poor in Mumbai. It explores the mediating role of civil society and questions the participation of the subordinate in global governance structures through networks of globalization from below. Using ethnographic case study methods, I generated data from unstructured focus-group interviews and through non-participant field methods targeting three marginalized slum communities in Mumbai which had recently experienced forced evictions. Utilizing general discourse analysis, in light of Scott’s theory on domination and infrapolitics, I critically reviewed the role of the Alliance, a civil society organization in Mumbai, in advocating for the slum dwellers and facilitating their participation internationally through transnational issue networks such as Slum Dwellers International. By looking at everyday responses to the work of the Alliance in the specific political context of Mumbai, I illustrate how the public display of associations does not take into account either sides hidden transcripts, or driving motivations. The hidden transcripts of the slum dwellers, coupled with opportunistic infrapolitcal resistance, will create a fissured subordinate voice in the international domain. The participation of the subordinate at the global level through transnational issue networks involves increasingly contradictory stakeholders with inequalities in resources, power, knowledge, and mobility. All with different habits and practices, different goals, tactics and strategies for achieving one’s own hidden transcript as well as the inclination to maintain the status quo. These institutions, corporations, media representatives, and governments will have differing ideas of institutional and social change, with disagreeing ideologies concerning class/caste, gender, advocacy, and how to achieve these. However, civil society organizations can potentially play a key mediating role in bringing the hidden transcripts of the subordinate and the elite closer together. Key words: globalization, civil society, resistance, transnational issue networks, developmen