The Gender and Space Project focuses on gender as a category to examine the ordering and experience of the city and its varied spaces, particularly public space. Public space in the context of the study refers to public places, ranging from streets, public toilets and market places (across class contexts) to recreational areas and modes of public transport. The project is located in and focuses on the city of Mumbai.

The Gender and Space Project Funded by the Indo-Dutch Programme on Alternatives in Development 2003-2006
Research on this project combined traditional social science research such as ethnography, interviews and group discussions along with methodology drawn from the areas of film, photography, architecture.
The project also had a strong pedagogic component involving elective courses in architecture and liberal arts colleges and short workshops. The project aims to understand the hierarchies and boundaries that determine access to public space along a variety of axes (class, caste, religion, geographic location and gender). It hopes to unsettle the gendered binaries regulating women's presence in public space, raising questions about the ways in which ideas of private-public, respectability-unrespectability, safety-violence, rational-risky are reflected the discourses of public space and citizenship. Our research demonstrates beyond doubt that despite the apparent visibility of women, even in urban India, women across class do not share equal access to public space with men. The research suggests that a concern with sexual safety for women constrains their movements and reduces access to public space. Though the work is based in Mumbai, the ideas and insights of this project find resonance with the experiences of women in other cities in India and the world, especially those that are re-envisioning themselves as global cities. The project engages with the common myth that feminism is passé in the 21st century, and shows just why and how relevant a feminist politics is to re-imagining a vibrant and inclusive concept of citizenship in contemporary India. The project was conceived between the years 2001 and 2003 and research was conducted between the years 2003 and 2006. For detailed information on research, events, publications and products please access www.genderandspace.org