Who Owns The City? Spatial Violence and Migrant Precarity in Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light

This research paper examines Payal Kapadia’s film All We Imagine as Light to reveal the spatial violence that characterizes capitalist urbanism. The study employs the theoretical lens of Henri Lefebvre’s concepts of the spatial triad, production of space, and the right to the city to reveal how the city of Mumbai is produced, controlled, and contested. Furthermore, the paper employs David Harvey’s formulation of “accumulation by dispossession” to reveal how urban development perpetuates exclusion and spatial violence. The research also interrogates the contradictions between the symbolic ideals of urban life and the material conditions of the marginalized. By doing so, the paper exposes the myth of Mumbai as the “city of dreams” and reveals the systemic inequalities embedded in the city. It also sheds light on the precarious existence of the migrants. The interdisciplinary approach, combining film analysis and urban studies, highlights the urgent need to rethink spatial rights in the rapidly transforming urban landscape of the Global South.