Routledge A Place to Call Home: Women as Agents of Change in Mumbai

Any city is a product of politics and economics, organizations and people. Yet, the life experiences of women uprooted from its poorest quarters seldom inform urban resettlement plans. In this ethnographic field study, Ramya Ramanath, Associate Professor at DePaul University, examines the lives of women displaced by slum clearance and relocated to the largest slum resettlement site in Asia. Through conversations with diverse women of different ages, levels of education, types of employment, marital status, ethnicity, caste, religion, and household make-up, Ramanath recounts how women negotiate a drastic change in environment, from makeshift housing in a park slum to ownership of a high-rise apartment in a posh Mumbai suburb. Each phase of their city lives reflects how women initiate change and disseminate a vision valuable to planners intent on urban and residential transformations. Ramanath urges the concerted engagement of residents in design, development, and evaluation of place-making processes in cities and within their own neighborhoods especially. This book will interest scholars of public policy, women and gender studies, South Asian studies, and urban planning. Review ‘Ramya Ramanath skillfully engages an incredible range of women whose experiences vividly illustrate their struggle to make homes, access livelihoods, rebuild lives and construct new identities in the aftermath of their resettlement. These voices are a powerful mode to understand the dynamics of the brutal dislocations, disruptions, and transitions that the poor experience in Mumbai.’ Rahul Mehrotra, Professor of Urban Design and Planning, Harvard University, USA ‘Ramanath shows us the value to be gained when women are ‘listened’ to. Most literature on slums and relocation/rehabilitation takes particular stances on the existence of informal settlements and state intervention in them. The author adds nuance and complexity to these conventional narratives on both fronts. Above all, these narratives also expose the falsehood of the claims of participatory processes by movements, its politics and dynamics and their vulnerability to pressures of the larger political economy. This book will be a learning tool for cities around the world.’ Amita Bhide, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India ‘A Place to Call Home sensitively highlights the everyday rhythms of the lives, aspirations and frustrations of a diverse group of 120 women before and after their displacement from a slum in Mumbai’s famous national park to Asia’s largest urban resettlement scheme. It is a must read for anybody interested in gender, place making, urban resettlement and public policy.’ Lyla Mehta, Institute of Development Studies, UK ‘There is much to learn from Ramanath’s work about the importance of relationality, behaviours, memory and materiality within place.  The book is a pragmatic, cogent argument for resettlement and rehabilitation policy to give more sensitive attention to the lifeworlds of future residents.  The documents of master-planners and consultants frequently contain content, based on ‘consultation’, that purports to identify what is important about a place.  The power of this book is that it shows how engagement that is more open and more genuine than what consultants usually achieve generates less quantifiable and less monetisable, yet more profound and infinitely more important findings.’ Housing Studies 'The ethnographic methodology adopted by Ramanath yields a depth of humanity that would otherwise be lost or overlooked in the aggregate facts and figures summarizing the effectiveness of such policies and programs. Yet, it also leaves the reader with the acute awareness of the effort needed to ensure that these voices reach the ears of researchers, policymakers, and practitioners working on the ground in resettlement and rehabilitation efforts in India and around the world. We are left wondering, how might the rules of newly constructed ap