CONTROL, NEGOTIATION AND FORM OF MIGRANTS' URBAN HOME

Abstract

This research aims to understand the rural-to-urban migrants¿ home-making processes in a mid-sized third world city. It primarily focuses on the more `successful¿ city-living migrants, who, once homeless in their rural place of origin, could actually accomplish some form of ownership of land or housing after migrating to the city. The underlying processes of `acquiring and maintaining ownership¿ become particularly interesting under post-WWII modern conditions, when both public and private formal sectors grossly failed to deliver land and/or housing to these vast number of populations particularly typical of any third world nation. The primary question hence remains, `What socio-spatial mechanisms explain many homeless rural migrants¿ successful re-making of home in the urban context of Khulna?¿ Depending on literature review on related works (e.g. informality, third world urban form etc.), and drawing empirical evidences from Khulna, Bangladesh, this research explores both social and spatio-physical processes pertaining to these ordinary migrants¿ home-making.