Curating gendered digital lives in Delhi’s urban peripheries
Combining approaches from urban geography, gender studies, software ethnography and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), this ArcGIS mapping initiative is a unique interdisciplinary international collaboration between King’s College London and ‘Gendering the Smart City’ #GSCProject project network societal partners Safetipin and Jagori in India.
⬇ PLEASE CLICK HERE TO EXPLORE OUR STORY MAP.
The Story Map contains data that has been collected in collaboration with our participants, the ‘Khadar Ki Ladkiyan [Khadar Girls]’ living in Madanpur Khadar JJ Colony (one of Delhi’s many slum resettlement colonies on the urban peripheries), and follows on from our #AanaJaana [#ComingGoing]: Curating Women’s Digital Stories of the City‘ exhibition funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), UK and hosted in partnership with our societal partners Safetipin and Jagori, institutional partners King’s College London and the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi. The exhibition was part of the ‘Art in Public Places’ initiative led by India Habitat Centre and Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) and was shown from 1-31st January 2019 at Mandi House Metro station, New Delhi.
The Story Map presents different perspectives of a digital age by young women living in Delhi’s urban peripheries – resettlement colonies, urban villages and border towns. Using visualisations of selected data – participatory maps, photographs (click here for Rohit’s photo essay on his photos included in the exhibition), videos and WhatsApp diaries maintained by these women over a period of 6 months, #AanaJaana curates women’s everyday stories of comings and goings in the city. It explores how women on the margins view, understand, and ultimately navigate the city through information and communication technologies (ICT) accessed from their mobile phones. It provokes us to think what mobility means in a context where social media provides real time information on the dangers and freedoms located in the metro, bus, auto rickshaw, and walkways as well as the opportunity to express this in creative and poignant ways. It also shows us how women living on the urban peripheries negotiate the ‘freedoms’ of moving (aana) in online space with the ‘dangers’ of going out (jaana) into the city, or the constraints of entering (aana) online space with the constant control over their bodies even when they leave (jaana) home for the city.
Gendering the Smart City 