Precarity and Resilience in Kavery Nambisan’s The Story That Must Not be Told

Abstract

In the wake of rising precarity, the pressing question that confronts thinkers is how to formulate a new form of a social contract that recognises, legitmises, and promotes systems of social infrastructures. By focussing on Kavery Nambisan’s The Story That Must Note Be Told (2010), this article highlights the precarious class of people living in a slum area. The crux of Nambisan’s account is that few lives matter more than other lives, and few spaces need more supply of resources than others, and the task of government and corporate agencies is to render agential measures to the elite class. It is a precarious tale of a place where the vulnerability and death of the marginalised feed off the privileged class. In the light of the precarious conditions rendered by the neoliberal regime, this article analyses Martha Albertson Fineman’s theory of human vulnerability, underlining the urgency to recognise human dependency on social institutions inherently linked to their resilience and survival.