SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This article explores the cultures of urban spaces and consumerism at the economic and cultural margins of the city. Building upon contemporary research on the efflorescence of consumerism in the wake of economic ‘liberalisation’, it focuses on the involvement of residents of the erstwhile Nangla Matchi ‘slum’ in Delhi in the activities of the ‘multilevel marketing’ company Revolution Forever (RF). The discussion proceeds through presenting a series of ethnographic vignettes relating to those who ‘work’ for the company as well as ‘seminar’ sessions organised by it. The article suggests that poor people’s work as agents of RF allows us to explore their relationships with imagined and real spaces, commitment to the notion of ‘free enterprise’ and the ways in which the company’s operational methods reproduce and reinforce the unstable worlds of the urban poor.