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Making space for women in urban governance ? Leadership and claims-making in a Kerala slum
This paper looks at the role of gender in the shaping and exercise of political authority. Its empirical focus is a slum in central Trivandrum, Kerala’s capital city, which is undergoing a phased process of formalisation and rebuilding funded through a flagship Indian national programme, the JNNURM....
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| Format: | Printed Book |
| Wydane: |
Environment and Planning A
2015
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| Hasła przedmiotowe: | |
| Dostęp online: | http://10.26.1.76/ks/005160.pdf |
| Streszczenie: | This paper looks at the role of gender in the shaping and exercise of political
authority. Its empirical focus is a slum in central Trivandrum, Kerala’s capital city,
which is undergoing a phased process of formalisation and rebuilding funded through a
flagship Indian national programme, the JNNURM. The upgrade project should offer
a dense network of ‘invited’ spaces for female participation within urban governance,
both through women’s presence within democratically elected municipal councils, and the
deliberate linking of its implementation to Kudumbashree, Kerala’s network of women-
only neighbourhood groups that are responsible for implementing various antipoverty
interventions throughout the state. Drawing on oral histories of the slum’s evolution,
interviews with project participants, and detailed ethnographic observation, we highlight
the contests over identifying the list of JNNURM beneficiaries who would ultimately be
granted a government-built flat at the project’s completion. This key task in the project’s
implementation has been devolved to the local level, and therefore offers important insights
into the practical efficacy of these invited spaces. The contests over this list show how
‘actually existing’ urban governance unfolds, and in particular highlight the interplay of
formal and informal practices at work in ‘fixing’ a list that had local legitimacy. They also
illustrate the ways in which power and authority are contested, and the role gender plays
within performances of leadership. Women’s political agency and efficacy are hampered
both by Kerala’s restrictive gender norms and by the high stakes and highly masculinist
struggles present within its urban politics. The paper’s theoretical contribution is to
broaden our conceptualisation of leadership and claims making in the Global South, and
within this to pay proper attention to the gendered nature of political space. |
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| Opis fizyczny: | pages 1113 – 1131 2015, volume 47, |