Community Research

Overview Livelihood research on urban poverty has a tendency toward snapshot logic: a survey captures a household at one moment, categorises it by primary income source, and moves on. The reality of low-income urban life is considerably more dynamic — households stack multiple income sources, shift between them seasonally, send members into circular migration, and constantly negotiate between the city and the village. Urban Livelihoods was an eighteen-month community-embedded documentation project in four low-income neighbourhoods in Delhi — Sanjay Colony (Okhla), Savda Ghevra (Rohini), Bawana, and Sangam Vihar. The project prioritised depth over breadth: a small number of households tracked closely over time, with regular visits, rather than a large-sample cross-sectional survey. ...