Authority Traversed: Police, Politics and the Urban Poor in Dhaka

Abstract This article is about territorial claims, authority and rights in an urban settlement or ‘bosti’ in central Dhaka. It highlights the drama of a violent encounter between a police officer and a young man, unfolding how the social ordering of urban space is (re)produced in and through authority and violence. It illustrates how situated practices of authority define who can access institutions of rights and justice, and who cannot. It concludes that claims for rights and remedies are not easy to act out when the collusion of state and non-state authority negate voice and agency and leave negotiation and equitable justice reserved for those recognised within a structure of resolution, illuminating how intimacies of violence interlink with wider political configurations and economic conditions.