Feminist politicization of the urban: young female students challenging spatial patriarchies

Abstract

ABSTRACTDrawing upon contemporary academic debates around comparative urbanism combined with theoretical post-colonial re-orientations, this paper focuses on young women’s spatial politics and embodied practices designed to pursue gender equality in Delhi. It focuses on the Pinjra Tod (‘Break the Hostel Cages’) movement, a collective of female students that engages with prefigurative feminist politics to challenge paternalistic logics of surveillance, gendered spatial-temporal control, moral policing and securitisation on university campuses. The Collective works to create spaces of protest, recognition and reflection in order to demand their rights to the city, to roam freely, organise, and dwell in spaces of gender equality.