Seelampur in north-east Delhi is one of the largest e-waste markets in India. Featured in numerous non-governmental organisation reports and journalistic accounts, mainly to highlight the environmental perils of informal e-waste dismantling, the e-waste market’s spatial history and underlying social relations have never been systematically studied. Combining 10 months of ethnographic fieldwork in 2021–22 with a quantitative primary survey of 115 traders in Seelampur, this paper offers new insights on the caste segmentation of commerce in urban India and, specifically, the role of kin networks and “community capital” in consolidating Seelampur’s status as a key node within India’s e-waste economy.
