Suchergebnisse

Rather than the long-term rural–urban migration to metropolitan centres, India's structural transformation process is characterised by complexified migrations and dispersed urbanisation. This article develops concepts of cities positioned in multiscalar power to propose a place-based, mobilities-sensitive approach and relational approach to urban theory that place smaller Indian cities within a broader narrative on migrant incorporation beyond the restrictive dichotomies of global and ordinary cities and domestic and international migration. Through two case studies, it shows how, despite low scalar positions on account of weak governance and informalised economies, smaller cities shape varied employment opportunities and generate spatially and temporally varied mobilities for domestic migrants. However, incorporation remains contingent on patronage-based social networks, creating differentiated experiences for those from different social locations; still more inclusive incorporation pathways are possible through expanding welcoming infrastructure and social fields for young migrants.

The COVID-19 migrant crisis was a watershed moment for internal migration, driving home the importance of inclusionary frameworks and action. Despite the lack of an omnibus migration policy, several disparate policy initiatives have emerged at multiple levels of government, across various sectors and involving multiple stakeholder types. This article traces and analyses internal migration policy in India over time, particularly how the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped responses. In doing so, it builds on the idea of 'mainstreaming', a reflexive approach to policymaking that Peter Scholten proposed to address such complex policy areas as migration. The article argues that a nascent framework for migration governance is evolving in India and offers suggestions on how mainstreaming can help streamline research and policy design for enhanced migrant inclusion.

While metropolitan cities are framed as emancipatory spaces for women migrants, we know less about their experiences in smaller cities, which are driving urban transformation in India. Drawing on pre-pandemic fieldwork with employed youth (aged 15–29 years) in Mangalore and Kishangarh, this article investigates young women's work, education, aspirations and mobilities in smaller cities which have relatively weak scalar positions in terms of global economic, political and social power. This article finds that small cities act as regional action spaces for women from villages and small towns to capitalise on fleeting opportunities and push against patriarchal boundaries through mobilities. It shows how women use a range of strategies from individual power tactics within households to leveraging institutional support systems to do so. The article suggests that situating migrant-friendly policy initiatives in small cities can potentially improve employment and mobility outcomes for young women.

Civil society has played a key role in responding to the COVID-19 crisis in Indian cities. This article uses the conceptualisation of boundaries and borders to reflect on the role of local state and civil society actors in Gurugram's pandemic response. It examines the state's bordering practices, state-society relations as well as processes of negotiation that enabled disease management as well as relief efforts-especially for migrant workers-during the crisis.

Semi-formal settlements like Delhi's unauthorised colonies (UACs), which await regularisation by the state, are characterised by aspirations for housing improvements and enhanced property values. Frustrated by the rigid regulatory frameworks that operate in the binaries of legal/illegal, formal/informal, planned/unplanned and having limited influence over processes of regularisation, UAC residents use 'transversal logics' (Caldeira, 2017) to negotiate planning regimes, credit markets and local politics to improve housing, which become their 'action space' to meet aspirations for social mobility. This article investigates the role of finance and networks of credit in autoconstruction, with a focus on the work of market actors in navigating market–citizen and market–state boundaries, foregrounded against the relatively well-studied politics of state–citizen relations. It finds that landowners and housing finance institutions, as well as actors within them, navigate regulatory boundaries through innovative partnerships and creative workarounds, and by strategically deploying collective and individual identities. Even as cities like Delhi endeavour to become planned world-class utopias, a multitude of actors continue to reshape the city's peripheral landscapes through the assertion, dissolution and spanning of multiple boundaries—regulatory, individual–collective, state–citizen, citizen–market and state–market.

While the governance of global migration is a growing conversation in policy and academia, internal migration has remained under-researched and under-represented as an area of focus. The increased policy attention on internal migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic provides an opportunity for examining the governance of internal migration. Drawing on a review of literature and two consequent rounds of an ex ante policy indexing tool—the Interstate Migrant Policy Index (IMPEX) 2019 and IMPEX 2021—this article focuses on policies formulated by Indian state governments that are prominent recipients of internal migrants in the pre- and post-pandemic period. We find that while the COVID-19 pandemic revealed the vulnerability of low-income internal migrants in India, it only partially translated into long-term policy measures. This article demonstrates that the complexity of migration policymaking governance in federal democracies like India is an important aspect of global migration governance. It argues that such a focus will enable a number of developing economies to refine labour and social protection policies toward sustainable economics and human development. The article motivates a research and policy agenda that can especially help developing countries improve labour mobility patterns for economic development as well as ensure fuller coverage of social welfare measures in response to climate migration.

micro Home Solutions' core idea is to impact social inclusion in cities by influencing the growth of self-built neighbourhoods that are mixed-use and where improvements to the quality of housing has multiplier effects. Design Home Solutions (DHS) was conceptualized to improve self-construction practices of urban low-income households through access to formal construction finance and professional construction assistance at an affordable fee. The poor and low-income households resettled by government as part of slum evictions programs are given tiny empty plots of land in city suburbs with unclear legal titles. They usually comprise informal sector workforce that are unable to have mortgage documents, and thus lack access to affordable construction loans or design assistance. To make a positive impact on the built environment called for a comprehensive project design, an inter-agency collaboration and vision. It has required communicating the vision of inclusive cities and working at multiple tiers to address the socio-economic and institutional challenges. The overall aim is for the pilot project to influence the design of larger government and bilateral lending programs on the complexity of working in the urban built environment.