This study employs a mixed-methods, qualitative research strategy and a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach to explain how legal exclusion is constructed in Kaula Bandar, a non-notified settlement of 12,000 people in Mumbai, India.

Although legal exclusion in slums has not been featured prominently in global health research, recent studies on Indian cities have shown a strong relationship between legal exclusion and various poor outcomes including infant mortality, child vaccination, child and adult undernutrition, literacy, and educational attainment. Community environmental deficiencies, including deficiencies in infrastructure and locational disadvantages, are among the explanations most frequently cited to explain poorer health outcomes in non-notified slums, as compared to notified slums. Recent ethnographic studies have shed light on some of the other factors that shape health and well- being in slums. These factors include exposure to violence, fragmented social relations, strained interactions with government and health institutions, and a marginalized position in the urban underclass of the global capitalist economy. Beyond the more specific focus on health, recent ethnographies in Indian slums reveal significant variations in the ability of residents to access basic services, garner political power, and maintain individual and social resilience. These studies show that the moniker of “slum” masks significant diversity across legal category, geographic location, and degree of social and economic marginalization, all of which shape residents’ opportunities, wellbeing, and subjective experiences. On the one hand, legally recognized slums such as Dharavi has drawn political and economic strength by extensive negotiations with politicians, police officers, and representatives of civil society organizations, whereas on the other, for residents of more precarious — although not necessarily non-notified — slums, such negotiations are often less successful or can exact a significant personal and collective price even when they are successful.

Building on these insights from social epidemiology, urban ethnography, and migration studies, our research will investigate how legal exclusion, in particular, shapes social conditions, as well as how it impacts subjective experiences of health and wellbeing, and intersects with other forms of social marginalization based on gender, caste, and religion.