Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses the role of boarding houses (BH) in urban migrations. BH are key providers of accommodation for single female migrants. Yet these spaces have not received sustained attention. Two problematics, public/private and movement/stasis will be utilised to analyse BH residents.

Paper long abstract:

Single women are relocating to cities in increasing numbers seeking employment and higher education. Although literature on the gendered dimensions of urban subjectivity and experience is growing, the search for suitable accommodation is a significant dimension of internal migration that is often neglected. Boarding houses, known colloquially as 'Paying Guest Accommodations', are key providers of accommodation for single female migrants. Residence is secured using networks, advertisements and recommendations. While the sector is subject to increasing regulation by municipal authorities, regulatory compliance continues to be low. To date, these spaces have not received sustained ethnographic attention.

Drawing on ten months of fieldwork, this paper examines the lives of young Indian women living in one such boarding house in the city of Bangalore, known internationally for its booming IT industries. The paper will posit boarding houses as spaces which confound the distinctions between the public and private sphere and are therefore emergent as key sites to interpret the shifting positions that women occupy as they move between natal families, boarding houses, workplaces, public transport and spaces for recreation and consumption. In contrast to migration studies which foreground movement and mobility, this paper draws on phenomenological approaches to analyse experiences of stasis and partially realised goals drawing attention to the mediated freedoms of gendered subjects in urban contexts.