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Active land markets in the periphery of Chennai have resulted in large tracts of agricultural land being bought by non‐agricultural actors seeking returns primarily from speculation. We argue in this paper that the financialization of land and consequent spurt of agricultural land sales are central to what scholars have termed land grab. Recent literature on land grabs has focused primarily on processes of accumulation by dispossession and the coercive role of the state. Our contention is that land grabs more commonly occur due to the state underinvesting in agriculture, resulting in "dispossession by neglect" of especially marginal and small farmers. Dispossession by neglect better captures the fluid boundary between the coercive and voluntary in contemporary land grabs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper utilizes a critical governmentality approach to theorize the processes through which urban elites become stakeholders in the 'world-class city'. Through a case study of public consultations for urban development plans in Chennai, India, the paper explores the technologies that produce urban actors who 'participate' in urban governance. Key to these technologies is a discourse of participation that privileges and normalizes citizens as urban stakeholders. The paper contributes to current explorations into the technologies of inclusion that are central to an emerging civic governmentality in South Asia. In Chennai this civic governmentality engages various segments of civil society in processes of urban governance through the mechanism of public consultation. It is through these public consultations that elites come to exert influence over urban plans and consolidate a vision and desire for the world-class city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]