Krity Gera

An Architect and Industrial Designer with her interests lying in integration of design with social sciences, Krity has a decade-long experience in academia and industry. Her interest in the application of design to bring about a change in society, especially focusing towards the marginalized communities, led her towards pursuing a PhD in Social Design. She is interested in studies related to mobility, gender issues, and reconceptualizing informalities as an urban and design paradigm. Besides this, she is keen to explore and integrate new technologies as a part of her research design process.

 

Research Title

Gender, Daily Mobility and Social Exclusion. Informal Transport as an Asset Towards Social Change.

ORCID id
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9341-3124

ResearchGate

 

Keywords

urban informality, gender studies, urban mobility, social design, digital ethnography

Research Abstract
The peripheries of society hold the capacity to transform their limited resources and barriers into settings for various kinds of opportunities. This study engages with the multi-disciplinary research focusing on urban peripheries, gender and social exclusion (inequalities) through the lens of (informal) mobility in order to reveal the socio-spatial reproduction. In the context of emerging countries (New Delhi, India), issues related to social exclusion are most visible in the case of women who live in urban peripheral areas and experience restriction on their movement because of social, cultural and economic issues. In such contexts, the informal modes of transport emerge as bottom-up solutions to fill in the voids left by public transportation system. Transportation is not just a means for geographical mobility but impacts the social mobility of women resulting in enhancement of their overall quality of life. More specifically, the study seeks to investigate into daily mobilities of urban marginalized women to recognize mobility as capability.

 

Research Methodology

The issues pertaining to scale and ethics, geographical boundaries and social imagination, class and gender, material culture and interdisciplinarity are all revealed through innovative mobile methodologies (A Tarrius, 2000). This research uses a combination of new technologies (GPS) along with mobile methods like ethnography to reveal the inter-relationship between social and spatial mobility of urban marginalized women.

 

Results / Outcomes

1. Establish a relationship between social and spatial mobility with (informal) transport as an asset.
2. Recognize the capacity of self-organization that has the potential to activate mobility of women.
3. Propose a design framework to inform the formal systems of mobility (transportation) and space.

 

Key Publications

•     Gera K., Hasdell P. (2020) Gamified Sharing Economy: The Role of Game Elements in Sharing Economy. In: Fukuda S. (eds) Advances in Affective and Pleasurable Design. AHFE 2019 International Conference. July 24-28, 2019. Washington D.C., USA. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 952. Springer, Cham. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-20441-9_25

•     Gera, K.,and Hasdell, P.(2020) The context and experience of mobility among urban marginalized women in New Delhi, India, in Boess, S., Cheung, M. and Cain, R. (eds.), Synergy - DRS International Conference 2020, 11-14 August, Held online. DOI: 10.21606/drs.2020.161

 

Qualification

B. Arch, Sushant School of Art & Architecture, India
M. Arch, School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, India

 

Supervisors

Mr. Peter Hasdell  (Chief Supervisor)
Dr.ir. Gerhard Bruyns (Co-supervisor)
Dr. Diego Sepulveda (External Co-supervisor)

 

Specializations / Interests

urban informality, socio-spatial analysis, gender studies, mobility, new technologies, digital ethnography