Princeton Initiative Forum on the Urban Environment // Cities Made & Unmade Infrastructure, Resistance, and the Agency in the South Asian City

Princeton Initiative Forum on the Urban Environment // Cities Made & Unmade

with Souvanik Mullick, Princeton-Mellon Fellow, and Hiba Hafiz, Boston College and University Center for Human Values Fellow in Law and Normative Thinking

Across the world, and particularly in the global South, the informal economy remains a defining feature of cities yet is understudied. In Delhi, the small transport sector is one of the city’s prime informal employers, comprising over 1.5 million operators. While less understood, these vulnerable informal workers are a powerful political force.

This discussion will analyze the figure of the “union leader” within this informal small transport sector who intermediates for and leads a diverse group of people. The union leader is situated within the interplays of a) political brokering, b) public service and social mentorship, and c) legal challenges. The term “city-making” shows how leadership emerges among the urban working poor, creating and mediating identities, opportunities, and associational actions. Within the broader context of a post-liberalized economy, these city-makers are vital to the collectivization, identity, and livelihoods of the working class and, ultimately, their success in the city. Mullick anthropologically theorizes the union leader, illuminating their engagement with the State and urban society as they shape and articulate for the informal economy through kinning and different strands of political action. Ultimately, their city-making both enacts and makes visible emergent aspects of urban justice in the informal world.

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Lunch is available while supplies last. Forum events are free and open to all.

The Spring 2026 Forum is supported by the School of Architecture; Center for Collaborative History; Humanities Council; Program in Latin American Studies; MS Chadha Center for Global India; Department of Sociology; Department of African American Studies; Effron Center for the Study of America; and the Program in History of Science.