Presentation short abstract

This research explores how women waste pickers in Delhi’s Bhalaswa landfill experience and cope with extreme heat, documenting its physical, mental, and spiritual impacts and capturing feminist, decolonial stories of community wisdom, resilience, and resistance.

Presentation long abstract

Bhalaswa, located in Delhi the capital of India hosts one of the country’s largest landfills and is home to communities living in conditions of severe poverty, exclusion, and environmental precarity. Gender and caste-based inequities shape daily life in this settlement, where most residents work as waste pickers and face heightened vulnerability to the accelerating climate crisis. Intensifying summer heat waves, harsh winter cold, and toxic pollution create a cycle of compounded marginalisation, making access to basic services, social protection, and dignified living increasingly difficult.

This research seeks to understand how extreme heat is experienced, embodied, and navigated by waste picker communities, with a particular focus on women whose labour, care responsibilities, and social location expose them to disproportionate risks. It explores the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of heat, tracing how it affects health, livelihood rhythms, mobility, and everyday decision-making. At the same time, the study aims to document the deep reservoirs of ancestral and community wisdom that shape local strategies of care, resilience, and resistance in the face of worsening climatic stress.

Grounded in feminist and decolonial methodologies, the project adopts a storytelling-centred approach, using visual and oral narratives to illuminate lived realities often overlooked in formal climate research and policy. Through co-created stories, photographs, soundscapes, and testimonies, the research will map the intimate, intergenerational knowledge systems that help communities endure and adapt to extreme heat.