Contemporary battles over urban housing rights in India are located at the intersection of two distinct and continuous legal imaginaries: one that begins from the principle of eminent domain and moves towards a liberal property rights regime; and another that begins from protection of collective claims (through slum improvement, in situ development, regularization of unauthorized colonies, etc.) and moves towards legal pluralism and communitarian rights. Thanks to the contentious process through which the constitution of India was created, both of the imaginaries outlined above can find justification in that same founding text. Yet, without a firm grasp of the mundane details of everyday life in the spaces that the urban poor inhabit it is impossible to understand the outcomes of the battles.
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