Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience

Photo essay on the gendering of aspirations and road construction in urban Nepal

30 April 2023

Dr Hanna Ruszczyk, a research associate at the Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience (IHRR) at Durham University, has published a photo essay related to the gendering of aspirations and road construction in urban Nepal.

Over a period of five years (2014-2019), Dr Hanna Ruszczyk visited Bharatpur, Nepal and documented through photography the changing urban landscape in the form of roads. A gendered delineation of urban aspirations is visible. Local cultural understandings dictate that men are the residents whose views matter, who are allowed to become true urbanites, expressing their version of modernity. Some neighbourhood groups provide co-financing to the local government and are able to have paved streets in their neighbourhoods. The quality of the relationship between neighbourhoods and the local authority can be reflected by the type of road surface found.

Ruszczyk, H.A. (2023) “‘We have arrived’: Gendered Roads in Bharatpur, Nepal.” Roadsides 9: 51–58.

https://doi.org/10.26034/roadsides-202300908

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