Workshop on "Arrival Cities: Researching with New Migrants"

Migration into urban areas is a key factor in the rapid growth of India’s cities. In Delhi and elsewhere, migration poses several challenges with respect to service provisions including housing, water supply and sanitation, healthcare, and transportation among others. It also poses challenges to the work and economy. Migrants seek to get by and get ahead in many different ways upon arrival, but often carve out a life in the ‘informal city’ – the bastis, work sites, and facilities beyond the reach of the state.

Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), India, and the University of Oxford, United Kingdom organised a workshop on “Arrival Cities: Researching with the New Migrants” on 9th and 10th March 2023 at PRIA. In this two-day workshop, scholars and practitioners of PRIA and the University of Oxford looked to learn from the knowledge and expertise of other academic institutions, research think tanks, and civil society organisations about how newly arrived migrants seek to establish not only a decent but also a better life for themselves, their families and their communities. They are looking for perspectives on gaps in understanding, research priorities, and ways in which knowledge can meaningfully be produced together with – rather than on – recently arrived migrants.  

The workshop primarily consisted of roundtable discussions. Guest participants were not expected to give formal presentations but were invited to briefly introduce how their professional activities relate to the theme of the workshop in several sessions. The insights developed during the event will feed into bids for external research funding, led by researchers at the University of Oxford with PRIA as a key partner.

Click here for the programme agenda.

Click here to read the full report.