[Reader-list] Abstract of the Presentation

[mmdesai]

Women and their Spatial Narratives in the City of Ahmedabad

An Abstract of the Presentation

By

Madhavi Desai

 

(I will be making a 15-minutes long PowerPoint presentation with visuals.)

The city of Ahmedabad is used as a convenient setting for a test case of the study of this nature. The basic premise of the research project is that though the city is theoretically available to all citizens, women are not fully able to physically and culturally participate in it. After introducing the three major parts of the city, I will be focusing on the various issues studied by me. Basically I have looked at the two ends of the urban scales: the individual being (female) on one hand and the city planning process on the other. Focussing on the middle class, this research attempts to document the spatial activities and experiences of women in Ahmedabad in the traditional as well as the modern sections. The research methods used include observation, questionnaires/interviews and map interpretations as well as library research. One of my objectives was to look into women's notions of what a city is in terms of their image and descriptions. I largely failed to achieve this. Somehow most women said they could not draw and were also unable to give detailed description of their urban image. Like Sudeshna's concept of "child friendly city", this work moots a "women friendly city". There is hardly any literature available on the subject in the subcontinent context. I hope this study, however limited, will be useful to women's groups, city municipality, designers and city planners.

 

 

 

 

 

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