Hidden Economies and Urban Narratives: Chor Bazaar Are Flourishing or Disappearing from Public Space in India?

This study examines the socio-economic and spatial dynamics of India's Chor Bazaars (thieves' markets) using a critical, interdisciplinary framework anchored in postcolonial urbanism and subaltern political theory. It finds that Chor Bazaars were structurally produced by colonial racialized zoning and remain functionally essential to the post-liberalization circular economy, facilitating the repair, reuse, and recycling of goods, including e-waste. A core finding is that the stigmatizing label 'Chor' functions as a potent tool of aesthetic governmentality, consistently weaponized in municipal policy and legal discourse to deny vendors the right to the city and justify displacement. Spatially, the markets are characterized by occupancy urbanism, where space is claimed through continuous, negotiated occupation, and governance is managed by informal panchayats. The study concludes that the Chor Bazaar ecosystem is under profound threat, which dismantles not just livelihoods but the vital, place-based social infrastructure sustaining these communities.