Swagata BASU, SSV College, Hapur, India
Anindita DATTA, SSV College, Hapur, India
Maria Anne FITZGERALD, SSV College, Hapur, India
Women’s lives in low-income and peripheral neighbourhoods within cities of the global south are contingent on several complex processes, including marriage migration and enforced integration into the informal workforce, often through their invisible work. In this paper, we argue that beyond the experiences of being unsafe and precarious, the city also offers women opportunities for emerging out of caste, class and religion-based social locations to participate in women’s informal networks within their neighbourhood. These feminist solidarities help them anchor themselves and imagine their right to the city. We document such solidarities and life-preserving efforts made by women of Sundar Nagri during the Covid -19 pandemic in ensuring food security, resisting domestic violence, assisting in child care. Based on findings from our fieldwork, we affirm that such networks of feminist pandemic solidarity can potentially subvert religion and caste-based social polarization by creating spaces of safety, solidarity and care, akin to a new space of spirituality. We opine that women’s efforts to preserve life in the adversity of Covid induced lockdowns emphasize the return of the theory of Mutual Aid (Kropotkin 1904; Dywer, 2020) as women-led community-based relief-work “mushroomed” spontaneously (Solnit, 2020).
Mots clés : neighbourhood networks|feminist solidarity|Mutual Aid|Covid-19.|Right to the City
A105024SB