[CSH-CPR Urban Workshop #148] Testing the Waters: Young Women’s Work and Mobile Aspirations in India’s Small Cities (M. Naik)
The Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH) & Centre for Policy Research (CPR)
are pleased to invite you to a Digital Urban Workshop (n°148)
by
Mukta Naik
(Fellow – CPR)
on
Testing the Waters: Young Women’s Work and Mobile Aspirations in India’s Small Cities
on
Tuesday, 28 June 2022 at 3:45 pm IST onwards
About the talk: While metropolitan cities are framed as emancipatory spaces for women migrants, we know less about their experiences in smaller cities, which are driving urban transformation in India. Drawing on pre-pandemic fieldwork with employed youth (aged 15–29 years) in Mangalore and Kishangarh, this talk investigates young women’s work, education, aspirations and mobilities in smaller cities which have relatively weak scalar positions in terms of global economic, political and social power. The research indicates that small cities act as regional action spaces for women from villages and small towns to capitalise on fleeting opportunities and push against patriarchal boundaries through mobilities. It shows how women use a range of strategies from individual power tactics within households to leveraging institutional support systems to do so. The findings suggest that situating migrant-friendly policy initiatives in small cities could potentially improve employment and mobility outcomes for young women.
About Speaker:
Mukta Naik, a Fellow at CPR, is an architect and urban planner. Her research interests include housing and urban poverty, urban informality, and internal migration, as well as urban transformations in small cities. Naik is a graduate of the School of Planning and Architecture and has a master’s degree in urban and regional planning from Texas A&M University. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Urban Development and Governance from the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS), Erasmus University Rotterdam.
This is the hundred and forty-eight (148) in a series of Urban Workshops planned by the Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH), New Delhi and Centre for Policy Research (CPR). These workshops seek to provoke public discussion on issues relating to the development of the city and try to address all its facets including its administration, culture, economy, society and politics. For further information, please contact: Aprajita Sarcar of CSH at aprajita.sarcar@csh-delhi.com, Mukta Naik at mukta@cprindia.org or Marie-Hélène Zerah at marie-helene.zerah@ird.fr
