Understanding the unplanned use of city space is crucial to equitable cities. Globally, two billion people work informally, and just under one billion live in slums.

This research project documents the lived experience of urban informality using photo-voice and participatory mapping. Explore stories from the point of view of women who live, work, save, and spend informally in these places. Learn about how they move through city space daily, manoeuvre through the state’s boundaries and regulations, encounter violence, engage in protest, and navigate the impacts of climate change and an ever-changing global political economy.

By focusing on women’s lives, this project inverts the views of policymakers and planners for a truly ground-level experience of the daily lives of these women. The lines between legal and illegal or between desirable and undesirable are no longer black or white. They are grey.