No One Will Let Her Live

Book excerpt: The inequalities that structure relationships in Delhi’s urban slums have left the health of women living there chronically vulnerable. Yet for women living in slums, there is no other option than to depend on someone. Based on fourteen months of intensive fieldwork with ten families in a Delhi slum, No One Will Let Her Live argues that women rely on moral strategies to confront the poverty and unstable relationships that threaten their well-being. Claire Snell-Rood breaks new ground by delineating the complex ways in which women set boundaries, maintain their independence, and develop a nuanced sense of selfhood that draws on endurance, asceticism, mobility, and citizenship.