Reflecting on a decade and a half of ethnographic fieldwork, this article examines the lessons learned while attempting to scrutinize the political dynamics among the urban poor. It begins with an analysis of the limitations of the concept of political clientelism to understand what really goes on when votes are "exchanged" for resources. It then studies the recursive relationship between patronage and collective action - two political phenomena typically seen as antagonistic to each other. The paper then elaborates on the notion of "the gray zone" - as the area of clandestine connections between perpetrators of violence and established political authorities. The article finishes with an examination of two themes that have been surprisingly absent in the research on the urban poor, environmental suffering and the politics of waiting.
Political ethnography; Collective action; Clientelism; Patronage; Politics of the poors; Politics of waiting; Environmental suffering