Urban practice in extremis: Resettlement policy, life-threatening housing, and social change in Mumbai

Abstract Cities today grapple with crises of inequality, governance, and environmental challenges. Scholarship must also adapt to these evolving issues by developing new practices and generating relevant scholarship. This article examines a case of ‘social extremis’—severe socio-political conditions that threaten or limit life—and explores social practices that challenge such conditions. The study focuses on a city-wide redevelopment project in Mumbai and the subsequent resettlement policy for displaced populations in industrial, environmentally hazardous peripheries. Based on extensive fieldwork, including over 100 interviews, extended community participation, and institutional document analysis, the article argues that neoliberal welfare regimes, while aiming to address housing inequality, resulted in life-threatening (necropolitical) consequences through inclusionary housing policies. While existing scholarship has documented how state and market forces could enable such life-limiting conditions, this article highlights successful grassroots efforts that have reconfigured state power for social change. It demonstrates that social movement emerged within state-led inclusion through new forms of community mobilization. The movement strategically invoked the right to life and leveraged judicial interventions and successfully negotiated with urban political regimes to secure alternative rehousing solutions. These social practices actively resisted life-threatening conditions, illustrating how communities can counteract extremis or life-threatening circumstances.