This research uses a fresh perspective to trace the impact of multiple economic, financial and environmental shocks on the 'underbelly' of slum dwellers in the South Indian city of Chennai over the period 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 12 month recall over the 6 month survey period during the shocks and their aftermath, a comparison of emic and etic measures of economic wellbeing and the comparative use of mixed methods. This research is also the first application of Qualitative Comparative Analysis to slum conditions.
Research on chronologically older people approaches 'the old' as a category of people sharing common problems and experiences that are rooted in the functional disparities between old and younger people. These functional disparities are seen as impinging on social and economic positioning leading to asymmetries in dependence and vulnerability. The argument here is that rather than simply being an objective functional condition, old age is a deeply contested, socially structured condition precisely because the definition of 'old' does not merely denote diverging abilities but also confers differential needs, rights and obligations both on the 'old' and on younger people. Drawing on research in rural and urban South India, the article illustrates how definitions of 'old age' are shaped by class position within local economies. This patterns older people's access to work and, consequently, not only the extent to which people can remain self-supporting in old age but also the degree to which younger people expect downward resource flows.
The stereotype of mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relations in India is that of a dominating mother-in-law and submissive daughter-in-law. However, residents of low-income settlements in Chennai (formerly called Madras) argue that daughters-in-law no longer submit to the demands and wishes of their mothers-in-law as they do in rural Tamil Nadu, a South Indian state of which Chennai is the capital. Rather than being culturally determined, relations between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law are shaped by shifting physical, social and economic dependencies and expectations of dependence in the future. In many families social and economic developments are redefining relations between older and younger generations. Where such developments have had, or are expected to have, a deleterious effect on older women's capacity to support themselves or secure the support of their family, mothers-in-law are adopting a variety of strategies towards their daughters-in-law including that of appeasement.Amongst Indians and the general public in the West the predominant image of mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relations in Indian joint families is that of the dominant mother-in-law and submissive daughter-in-law. However, many residents of low-income settlements in Chennai (formerly called Madras) complain that in the city daughters-in-law do not submit to the demands and wishes of their mothers-in-law as they do in rural Tamil Nadu, a South Indian state of which Chennai is the capital.Younger women in these settlements, wishing to stress the inversion of the `typical' order of the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationship, state `here it is the daughter-in-law who lies on the bed ordering her mother-in-law around'. In practice many women in these low-income households are wary of their daughters-in-law and anxious not to antagonise them. Such claims and relations not only contradict the
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