Ranjita Mohanty

Women Leadership in Poor Urban Communities
A Comparative study of Delhi and Cape Town

This study explores how poor women mobilize to access the state-provided rights and resources.  It thus explores a set of issues that relate to poor women situated in the overall contexts of a democratic state system that constantly fails to meet their basic needs and civil society actors who try to bridge the gap between women and the state systems. The research is conducted in two urban sites in India and South Africa to provide a comparative dimension to the above question. Slums have historically been the sites of struggle in the two countries, and this research intends to explore how poor women living in urban slums and in the larger context of democratic discontent struggle to make the state accountable.