Gendered Realities: Exploring Property Ownership and Tenancy Relationships in Urban India

Gender is emerging as a central analytical construct in exploring landed property ownership and tenancy relationships in India. This article explores the nature of land tenure and landed property rights in slums in India from a gender perspective. The author raises key issues that need consideration in developing a gendered vision of urban land rights, tenure, and reform by documenting some of the central findings of her field research conducted in slums in Ahmedabad, India, in collaboration with the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA). In each case, the author also draws out policy recommendations for redressing discrepancies in women’s ownership of urban land and housing.     

Socioeconomic and demographic analysis of occupational patterns in Delhi slums, India

Slums are a major concern for the contemporary urban planners, especially in the developing world. They typically represent an imbalance between migration into cities and economic growth of the city. For a long time, governments have tried to improve the quality of life for the slum dwellers, with varying degree of success. Such efforts understate the need to continually understand various aspects of the slum economics. This article is an attempt to comprehend the socio-demographic and economic patterns of the population in slums of Delhi, India. The study employs the use of field survey technique comprising of questions that tapped the education level, income, gender and occupational status of the respondents. The sample consisted of 5053 participants and further classified as working and non-working population. On the basis of the survey, the occupational patterns are analyzed and classified at three different levels （macro, meso and micro）. The study reveals high degree of positive correlation between the education level, economic status and gender parity in the slums.     

Problematizing Urban Shit(ting): Representing Human Waste as a Problem

Shit(ting) as a problem is not an a priori position. It is made a problem through socially mediated discursive and non‐discursive practices. Problematizations of human waste promoted by formal governance institutions have dominated the conversation, while the ways in which slum residents experience shit(ting) as a problem receive considerably less attention. This article examines how human waste and its attendant practices are represented as a problem in Agra, India. Using Foucauldian‐based analysis, this research makes visible problematizations of urban shit(ting) and exposes the divergent logics employed by urban actors. Ethnographic interviews and document analysis reveal six ways in which various actors experience shit(ting) as a problem—as: (1) inconvenient; (2) dangerous; (3) contagion; (4) undignified; (5) polluting; (6) primitive. Inconvenience was the problematization invoked most frequently by slum residents, but never by governance groups, meaning that issues of inconvenience were absent from formal planning processes. This absence can, in part, be attributed to the toilet's ability to address multiple problems simultaneously. Findings from this research support the call to acknowledge the situatedness of urban inquiry through analysis of problematizations. In doing so, scholars and practitioners gain access to a more complete toolkit for developing and evaluating urban sewage initiatives.     

How Interspersion Affects Class Relations

Scholars have identified a new configuration of spatial inequality in several of the largest cities in the developing world. This configuration, which I label interspersion, is characterized by the general proximity of classed spaces, particularly ‘slums’ and ‘enclaves’. There is disagreement about how interspersion affects class relations. One side argues that it worsens class relations by foreclosing substantive class interaction; the other side maintains that it improves class relations by enabling greater class interaction. I argue that it is not the extent but the form of class interaction that matters. Interspersion worsens class relations by promoting categorically unequal interaction. It provides regular opportunities for the imposition of spatial boundaries on slum residents. Regular experiences of boundary imposition deepen their sense of discrimination. This argument is based on an ethnographic study of the relations between slum and enclave residents in Metro Manila.