The Gendered Effects of Urban Displacement: Insights from Delhi, India

Abstract

In India, the politics of hope around slum relocation is created through claims that it would improve living standards of the poor and vulnerable families. Families, however, are not a unitary entity whose members are affected by relocation in the exact same ways. Motivated by the sets of feminist literature that problematize the family as a locus of both cooperation and conflict, and displacements as a gendered process, this article examines how forced relocation alters labor market engagements of (relocated) women, and why. Using an in-depth fieldwork-based case study of slums and a resettlement colony in Delhi, it elucidates if relocation-led sociospatial changes are reproducing gendered vulnerabilities in the city. Through that, my work underscores the need to transform the current policy into one that is gender sensitive and, hence, truly inclusive. JEL Classification: J46, R11, O20, P10