Urban Livelihoods in Slums of Chennai: Developing a Relational Understanding

Abstract

As South Asia urbanizes, urban poverty is becoming more important in the development agenda. Many slums in India have existed for decades, despite multiple policies and programmes for reducing urban poverty. This article reveals the diversity of slums as outcomes linked to their internal development and their relations to the city’s macro-economic policies and institutional landscape. The focus is on the way these relations shape opportunities and constraints of households’ livelihoods over time in two slum settlements of Chennai. The research uses mixed methods to show how outcomes for households are closely linked to the settlement history, institutions and city region of which they are a part of. The article argues that slum development models and policies should promote relational understandings of slum areas to influence policies towards more effective support for reducing poverty among residents.

Alors que l’Asie du Sud s’urbanise, la pauvreté urbaine devient plus importante dans le programme de développement. De nombreux bidonvilles existent depuis des décennies en Inde, malgré des multiples politiques et programmes visant à réduire cette pauvreté. Cet article révèle la diversité des bidonvilles comme résultant de leur développement interne, et de leurs relations avec les politiques macroéconomiques et les paysages institutionnels des villes où elles sont situées. L’accent est mis sur la façon dont ces relations forment des opportunités et des contraintes pour les ménages, influençant leurs moyens de subsistance au fil du temps, dans deux bidonvilles à Chennai. La recherche utilise des méthodes mixtes pour montrer comment les issus des ménages sont étroitement liés à l’histoire du peuplement, aux institutions et à la région de la ville à laquelle ils appartiennent. L’article démontre que les modèles et politiques pour le développement des bidonvilles devraient favoriser la compréhension relationnelle de ces zones, afin d’influencer les politiques en faveur d’un soutien plus efficace dans la réduction de la pauvreté chez les résidents.

Annexure 1: Household Livelihood Index (HLI)

The dimensions of the Household Livelihood Index were drawn from context and existing theories (Table 3). Regarding physical assets, the adequacy indicator was derived from the concept of ‘sufficient living space’ for the household, which is constituted by three or less members sharing a room (UN-Habitat, 2006). Dimensions for ownership and sanitation were derived from fieldwork discussions. For the human assets, categories for labour were based on a study on relocated slum households in Chennai (Coelho et al, 2012). Indicators for health and education were based on settlement factors. Though measured at the individual level, the indicators for education and labour skills were aggregated to the household level. This was done by assuming that the highest education attained and labour skill developed at an individual level have direct implications for the household as a whole. Therefore, the highest education and skills attained by the individuals were used as a proxy for the household. Caste heterogeneity and political participation in the two settlements were taken into account for the social/political assets. Categorization of household goods into basic durables and relative luxuries were adopted from Pouw (2008), while for financial assets, the range of commodities in each of the indicators was based on field discussion. Income was not included in the HLI as an indicator of financial assets because poorer people have diverse and irregular sources of income and therefore commodities were chosen as a proxy instead.

Table 3 Description for HLI