Subaltern urbanisation revisited

When we used the phrase ‘subaltern urbanisation’ (Denis, et al., 2012), we were quite up front about it being as much a literary device to focus attention on our area of inquiry as to acknowledge a link, possibly tenuous, with the wide literature on subaltern studies, particularly in Guha of the ‘contribution made by the people on their own that is independently of the elite’ (1982: 39). Four years later, as we publish results of the initial project (Denis and Zerah, 2016), it is a matter of some satisfaction to see the phrase travel a little—even to a documentary featuring four residents of Guwahati.