Losing ground: the contestation between coastal infrastructure and community from a gender perspective

The study focuses on the gendered impact of coastal infrastructure by examining the oral narratives of fisher women, shedding light on how their lives and livelihoods have been affected. This research highlights that the marginalization of indigenous communities occurs through the erosion of their livelihoods in the process of coastal urban development. Additionally, the ‘modern urban imagination' of cities in the Global South not only bypasses roads but also cities and people when implemented through ‘giant infrastructure’ projects. In this variant of development, giant infrastructure is made visible, which invisibilize the micro-struggles of indigenous inhabitants practising their traditional livelihood. Focusing on infrastructure, community and gender in the planning of the city, this paper finds the process of exclusion as a result of technocratic, biased and fragmented city planning that reproduces and exacerbates inequalities, shrinking indigenous access to city spaces.