TY - JOUR
T1 - Multiple shocks and slum household economies in South India
AU - Harriss-White, Barbara
AU - Olsen, Wendy
AU - Vera-Sanso, Penny
AU - Suresh, V.
N1 - This is a reduced version of the paper for the Conference on ‘The Hidden Contribution of Older People: Rethinking Age Poverty Opportunity and Livelihoods’, Centre for Law, Policy and Human Rights Studies and the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Madras, 19th and 20th March, Chennai, 2010. We wish to thank Marlia Hussain, Henry Joe and Arul George for their field research in difficult conditions – without which the desk research would not have been possible. We wish to thank the two referees for meticulous comments. Barbara Harriss-White also wishes to thank IEDES, Paris-1, for the visiting professorships providing her with the space to complete this paper. The research is part of the New Dynamics of Ageing initiative, a multidisciplinary research programme supported by Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Medical Research Council (MRC), The project comes under a grant (RES-352-25-0027) entitled “Ageing, Poverty And Neoliberalism In Urban South India”, directed by Penny Vera-Sanso, Birkbeck College, London, 2009. Contact [email protected] is a revised paper submitted to E&S for a Special Issue.
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - This research uses a fresh perspective to trace the impact of multiple economic, financial and environmental shocks on slum-dwellers in the South Indian city of Chennai from November 2008 to May 2009. It examines the effects of a concatenation of events scaled from the global to the local, consisting of economic shocks (speculation in financial, fuel and food markets) and extremes of rainfall and temperature, on a cross-section of the urban poor (differentiated by age and gender), taking in household dynamics and work status. The paper also traces the rapidity with which these shocks transfer from the global economy to slum settlements. The method involved twelve-month recall over three survey periods during the shocks and their aftermath, a comparison of emic and etic measures of economic well-being and the comparative use of mixed methods. This research is also the first application of qualitative comparative analysis to slum conditions. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.
AB - This research uses a fresh perspective to trace the impact of multiple economic, financial and environmental shocks on slum-dwellers in the South Indian city of Chennai from November 2008 to May 2009. It examines the effects of a concatenation of events scaled from the global to the local, consisting of economic shocks (speculation in financial, fuel and food markets) and extremes of rainfall and temperature, on a cross-section of the urban poor (differentiated by age and gender), taking in household dynamics and work status. The paper also traces the rapidity with which these shocks transfer from the global economy to slum settlements. The method involved twelve-month recall over three survey periods during the shocks and their aftermath, a comparison of emic and etic measures of economic well-being and the comparative use of mixed methods. This research is also the first application of qualitative comparative analysis to slum conditions. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.
KW - ageing
KW - gender
KW - informal economy
KW - poverty
KW - qualitative comparative analysis
KW - shocks and crisis
U2 - 10.1080/03085147.2013.772760
DO - 10.1080/03085147.2013.772760
M3 - Article
SN - 1469-5766
VL - 42
SP - 398
EP - 429
JO - Economy and Society
JF - Economy and Society
IS - 3
ER -
