Door to door

Priyadarshini, Sumedha and Dubey, Parul (2025) Door to door. In: Gendered Transformative Initiatives in South Asia. Routledge India, London, pp. 149-170. ISBN 9781003604877

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Abstract

Henri Lefebvre introduced the transformative concept of the ‘right to city’ (Lefebvre, 1996), which he described as the ‘demand for a transformed and renewed access to urban life’ (Lefebvre, 1996, p. 158). The right to the city then can be said to have two aspects for the residing and aspiring dwellers of the city: 1) the right to be a part of the city, stemming from a sense of belongingness, and 2) the right to produce and reproduce the urban spaces. The right to city when juxtaposed with the idea of citizenship, where citizenship exists as both a status and claim making (Das, 2011), makes the relationship between the city dwellers and the city more complex and dynamic in nature. In the context of gendered city spaces, the materiality of the city like the housing infrastructure itself reproduces hierarchy, differences, biases and stereotypes on the gendered lines. This chapter attempts to understand and explore how women, as residents and citizens of the city, exercise their right to city via their right to housing, that is, access to housing infrastructure in the city. The chapter explores narratives from single women in the multicultural metropolitan Delhi-NCR, about their experiences of accessing housing. The single women’s right to city, as a right to belong and make claims to the resources in the city, is further problematised as the chapter attempts to navigate the intersectionality of gender, class, caste and religion. The chapter examines how the intersection of discourses on womanhood, femininity, marriage and work, inform and influence the ability of single women to navigate and negotiate their housing needs in the city. Through a qualitative narrative analysis of in-depth interviews with single women (aged between late 20s and early 30s) in search of housing or those with experiences of being tenants or owners as single women, the chapter examines expectations from women as tenants and property owners, the barriers in renting accommodations to single woman and the interplay of gender, caste, class, age and profession in renting decisions. The study would further help us to re-imagine urban from a feminist perspective.

Item Type:	Book Section
Authors:	Priyadarshini, Sumedha and Dubey, Parul
Editors:	Editors Email ORCID Bhatia, Reema UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
Document Language:	Language English
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Area Studies, Arts, Humanities, Language & Literature, Social Sciences
Subjects:	Social sciences > Sociology & anthropology > Factors affecting social behavior > Human ecology > Human ecology-urban areas Social sciences > Social problems & services > Other social problems and services
Full Text Status:	None
Related URLs:	Library OPAC
URI:	http://publications.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/id/eprint/6744
Publisher URL:	https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003604877-8

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