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The ongoing urban transition in South Asia is a major fact in economic and environmental terms, but also in social and political terms. Indeed cities, especially megacities, are privileged sites both for social change (which partly explains their attractiveness) and for political experimentation. One can observe in India, for example, a series of local initiatives (discussed in national debates) that suggest a new status of gender issues in urban governance : free public transport for women, massive construction of public toilets, increased recruitment of women in police, taxi companies created and driven by women etc. These initiatives are very diverse in their ambition and reach, but together they suggest a new consciousness of what is at stake in making urban public space accessible for women. Such stakes are social and economic (women’s access to work, education, leisure), but also political (women’s capacity to have an impact in elections, as was the case in the latest elections to the legislative assembly of Delhi). Such initiatives deserve all the more to be scrutinized that they happen in societies where women as a whole have been devalorised, and sexual minorities marginalised, in many ways.

This PhD, at the intersection of political science, gender studies and urban studies, will aim at measuring change, understanding its causes and its impact, and if possible, assessing its replicability.

The PhD student will work in the Centre d’Etudes de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud (Centre for South Asian Studies, CNRS-EHESS), Paris, but also in the Centre de Sciences Humaines (French Centre for Social Sciences) New Delhi, to which s-he will be attached during the fieldwork.

See the modalities of application on the CNRS website

Deadline: July 22, 2020

Contact: Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal (tawalama@ehess.fr)