Praxis of Gaze in a Post-colonial City: Navigating the Subalternity of the Arunthathiyar Community and Panopticon Surveillance

This research study analyses the positionality of the Arunthathiyar community in the city of Coimbatore through systematic surveillance of labour, spatiality of manual scavengers and conservancy workers. The Arunthathiyars , designated as a Scheduled Caste in the state of Tamil Nadu, are mainly engaged in sanitation across municipalities and corporations in the State. 1 The western region of Tamil Nadu has a predominant population of Arunthathiyar community, particularly the city of Coimbatore, which unveils the complexities that determine the position of Arunthathiyars who have been spatially segregated and confined to the scavenging quarters. This caste-based exclusion based on the socio-spatial level aggravates the exposure of the Arunthathiyar community to the power gaze and monitoring mechanisms of sanitation inspectors, labour supervisors, and the Urban Habitat Development Board. In this context, the paper explores the question of surveillance and the surveillance practices of the state centred around urbanity of Arunthathiyars in a panopticon.