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PhD thesis on Subjectivity, Relatedness and Health among Urban Poor in Delhi

 'Living with Others: Subjectivity, Relatedness and Health among Urban Poor in Delhi.'
University of Copenhagen

Emilija Zabiliute from the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen defended her PhD thesis entitled 'Living with Others: Subjectivity, Relatedness and Health among Urban Poor in Delhi' on 29 June 2016.

 ‘Living with Others’ is an ethnographic study of everyday lives and health-seeking practices among urban poor living in a settlement in the margins of Delhi, India. The Assessment Committee included Professor Veena Das from Johns Hopkins University, USA; Professor Nandini Gooptu from Oxford University, UK; and Professor with special responsibilities Steffen Jensen from University of Aalborg and DIGNITY - Danish Institute against Torture. Venue: Karen Blixens Vej 4, Copenhagen.

Abstract: By exploring subjectivities, lived experiences of poverty, and relations through a prism of health, the inquiry aims to move beyond the explorations of precarity embedded in political economies and urban governance that dominate discussions on urban poor neighbourhoods in India. Empirically, the study draws on long-term ethnographic fieldwork and interviews among urban poor, mostly women; and formal and informal health practitioners, abundant in the area. Among these are governmental interventions, run under a maternal health developmental programme, National Rural Health Mission. The study argues that the vulnerabilities characterising the lives of the urban poor unfold and are negotiated through relations with kin, neighbours, and political patrons. Drawing on Levinas’ philosophy, which holds that subjects are relational and vulnerable to each other, and on the anthropology of relatedness and kinship, the study shows how ‘living with others’ entails both dependencies and care. Read more...