Exploring Changes to Girls’ Everyday Mobilities over the Last 20 Years in the Urban Slums of Kolkata, India

Drawing on two decades of longitudinal participatory, qualitative research with young people in the urban slums (bustees) of Kolkata, India, my presentation uses spatial exploration as a window into social and cultural changes which have occurred over time. Specifically, this presentation explores the way everyday mobilities of leisure, romance, and employment have changed in my last 20 years in the field. By longitudinally mapping girls’ everyday spatial literacies in the slums, I demonstrate clearly how, more than any other period in my research, post-pandemic technological access has been critical in instilling confidence in both girls, and their families, to participate in new areas of “respectable” female employment, higher education and newly forged relationships. This is an important shift over the last two decades, and using young people’s own words and experiences, I show how new mobilities allow girls to feel like participants in an exciting, modern India. At the same time, cultural expectations around honour and shame continue to reinforce patriarchal control over girls’ movements. By presenting participatory and qualitative longitudinal evidence of mobility changes, I showcase some important social and cultural shifts in a globalizing India, while also describing how many things have stayed the same.