Spaces of Belonging: Indian women migrants' everyday spatial practices in Hyderabad, India and Melbourne, Australia

© 2021 Sripallavi NadimpalliContemporary migration patterns are complex and diverse; the reasons for migration are multiple. Further, the relationships migrants share with different locales extend beyond places of origin and reception. In the context of globalisation, the social location of individuals within local and global networks, constrains and enables their spatial mobility and their level of inclusion and exclusion (Massey 1994). Against this backdrop, this thesis analyses migrant women’s sense of belonging experienced through their everyday spatial practices. The specific focus is on women of Indian origin in two contexts: as internal migrants within multilingual, multicultural India, and as international migrants to Australia. The spatial routines of these women are analysed using Hagerstrand’s time-geography notational diagrams to arrive at different migrant typologies of belonging. The emphasis is on movement (particularly habitual time-space routines) and the affective dimensions attributed to everyday spaces to arrive at a conceptualisation of place-belonging. Further, an intersectional lens is overlaid to understand the variation in these experiences of belonging with time and context, based on the migrant women’s complex identities. Place-belonging is shaped continually by both external structures and individual subjectivities during the women’s life course, which determine their spatial activities and patterns at a given context and time. Maintaining kinship ties is considered an integral part of Indian culture; thus, Indian women migrants often navigate patriarchy and other socio-cultural practices in old and new contexts. Agency is, therefore, an important aspect of understanding how gender is articulated in different places through migration. The findings of this thesis aim to offer new insights into the relationships between migrant women and cities and contribute to the literature on everyday experiences of place-belonging for women of Indian origin. This thesis also proposes a replicable methodology for analysing the everyday life of an individual, particularly to identify spaces of belonging from a gendered perspective