Poor subjects or empowered citizens? : Perspectives on rights and public service delivery among female urban poor in Delhi

Abstract

How do the female members of the urban poor population in Delhi view and interact with the government? This thesis seeks to give the answer in light of a public service delivery collaboration between state and civil society: The Mission Convergence Programme. The frame for exploration is a month long fieldwork done in and around a Gender Resource Centre in East Delhi. How do women in the locality use this centre, and how do they view the social security delivered by the state? Do they see themselves as poor subjects or empowered citizens? It appeared that respondents deliberately would use something I have called the ‘poor woman’s discourse’. By using this, they highlight their weaknesses, and as such, also their eligibility for being targets of various welfare programmes in an area and a time where both local and international NGOs as well as the government seems to focus much of their attentions and efforts on the urban poor women in need of empowerment.

In addition to discuss how the urban poor view and experience the state and its collaboration with civil society organizations, the thesis elucidates on the collaboration between the state and the NGO. How is it working? What are the hiccups in implementation? Does the collaboration have the potential to transform the ambivalent relationship between the state and the urban poor?