Mentor – Sakshi KhuranaPGP 15 – 223

Mentee – Shabnam Khawaja ShaikhClass – VIIRoll no 843

Location –Juhu Galli, Andheri West

Community Ethnography

Introduction to Ethnography

Webster defines ethnography as “the study and systematic recording of human cultures or a descriptive work produced from such research”. Ethnography is the systematic study of people and cultures. It is designed to explore cultural phenomena where the researcher observes society from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is a means to represent graphically and in writing the culture of a group.

Ethnography and management

As budding managers, at first sight, the idea of conducting an ethnography study in an under-privileged society seemed a little far-fetched and unnecessary addition to the burden of the B-school life. But the objectives of the study were explained to us very clearly at the beginning. We were supposed to have an in-depth understanding of the community in which the Sitara lives and through that understand the aspects of urban poverty manifested in the growing slum population in cities like Mumbai. The study was not only meant to make us view our Sitaras and their surroundings as subjects, but also derive deep and meaningful business insights from the study as the growing business in India is getting generated from the bottom of the pyramid. The urban poor are, in all certainty, the ultimate source of many of the jobs most of us will be getting, irrespective of our specializations.

The process

This study was conducted in the slums of Juhu Galli through observations over several visits and interactions with the Sitara(Shabnam), her mother, 3 of her neighbours and 3 of the shopkeepers in the surrounding market, who were all in different trades. The questions from each of the individual were asked based on various aspects of community ethnography which were meant to be studied. Following is the list of people who contributed to this study:

Shabnam – sitara Shabnam’s mother Parveen – neighbour Champa – neighbour Farah – neighbour Usman – owner of a local butcher shop Praveen – owner of a local paan store Abbas – owner of a local kirana store

Observations

Economy:

The following section is the set of observations related to the Sitara’s and the community’s economic condition.

Occupations/Trade: Most men in the community either work as daily wage earners at various construction sites or at jobs such as drivers, watchmen at residential buildings/malls and tailors/cutting masters in areas near to the locality. Though most women in the community are housewives, some of them work as household help for people in and around Andheri, some work as in-house nurses and others have taken up co-operative work like bangle-making. 18-20 women in the locality work with a local NGO, which assists them with the machinery and material to make bangles. They take a minimum pre-decided quantity fr om them each day, but the volume might increase based on the seasons. Shabnam’s mother also is a part of the co-operative and her father is tempo driver. Like any other household in the community with 2 earning members, they are able to earn anywhere between Rs. 10000 to 12000 a month, out of which her father earns Rs. 6000-7000 a month and her mother Rs. 4000-5000 from the bangles. In a typical household, with only the male working, the earning is about Rs. 5000-6000 a month on an average. There are certain households where both the parents are not working and the earnings come from other sources like rent, family money, etc.

Savings/Debt/Investments: Most of the people living in the community have negligible knowledge when it comes to savings or investments. Most of them are daily wage or minimum wage earners, who are living in these homes on rent. They neither have the knowledge nor the resources to invest in any form. Though all of them have bank accounts in the nearby banks, including the most popular, Syndicate bank, they don’t have any substantial amount of money or assets in the bank. Most of them have long term savings accounts, where they have no more than 4-5000 rupees worth of assets. Most of the people in the community take debts on occasions like marriages or while they are purchasing a house. Since they don’t have the resources to take loan using collateral from a bank, they borrow money from each other or local businessmen. This mutual borrowing often leads to disputes among the members of the community as well.Most of the people in the community are living on rent. But there are some who own the houses they live in. Shabnam’s family, for example has their own house. The 3 floor house is in the name of her grandfather, out of which one floor her family has taken. The rest of the 2 floors have been given out on rent. The one floor that they have was also given to them after

Bangle-making machine at Shabnam’s house

a lot of dispute, after they were kicked out of their ancestral home and ran out of the capacity to pay rent.

Insurance: The people in the locality are majorly unaware about the concept of insurance, as they are about savings and investments. But Shabnam’s parents have recently started to think about insurance as they have been exposed to a lot of new things through Abhyudaya.

Infrastructure: The locality, as any urban slum, faces major infrastructural issues.

o More than 500 people of the locality have to share less than 50 common bathrooms, available at 5 different locations around the society. People have to wait for between 10 minutes to 1.5 hours to use the common bathrooms every day.

o 1 water connection is shared with 9 households. Each household on an average gets flowing water for less than half an hour a day. In case they run out of water, they have to go outside the slum to the common water tanker to fetch more water.

o As per the members, drinking water is not a problem. They get clean drinking water from BMC and they are satisfied with it.

o The condition of the roads is abysmal. The lanes are not lit at all. The pathway to the slum is so dark that even during daylight, one has to use torch light to get through. The roads are filled with potholes and one has to walk almost a kilometre to take a rickshaw as rickshaws do not enter the area.

o Many complaints regarding water, roads and applications to build toilets have been made to BMC and the local politicians, but no substantial actions have been taken.

Consumption: The consumption patterns of the society were highly interesting. Following were some of the key observations made from interactions with members and business owners in the area:

o The people in the community usually buy all their necessities from the nearby market. The market in the area is extremely well-rounded. There are local stores for groceries, meat, toys, stationery, jewellery, tailoring and other daily utilities. Hardly anyone from the locality goes out of their surroundings to shop, except in case of special occasions like shopping for wedding, which they do at Andheri Lokhandwala market.

o Unlike one might assume, the buying is not done in bulk. Most of these people are daily wage earners or people with very limited resources. Hence, they buy only what they need, when they need and only how much they need at the moment. Shopping trips are as frequent as every 2 hours.

o Another interesting observation was that the people in the locality are not brand loyal, but are brand conscious. As per the shopkeepers, people buy mostly branded stuff, in case of daily utilities like soap, shampoos, etc. But among the several brands, they buy the cheapest ones.

o In terms of SKU, shopkeepers prefer to stock smaller SKUs like sachets, 250 gm packs, etc as the buying doesn’t occur in bulk.

Demographic

Household types: Most of the families living in the locality are nuclear families. Usual composition of a family is: mother, father, 3-4 kids.

Life-stage of family: Most parents in the family are in their early or mid 40’s. They have all their children either in school or fresh out of school(some of them are in college, some work and some do both). Shabnam’s family for example, has 4 kids, 2 boys and 2 girls. 2 girls are in school. The eldest son studies in a Madarsa and the 3rd son works as a trainee at a tailor shop.

Society

Culture: The locality has a very vibrant culture. Though dominated by Muslims, the society has substantial population of Hindus and Christians as well. The community celebrates all festivals alike. Eid is celebrated across religions with much zest and so is Christmas. Juhu galli sees one of the most vibrant navratri and ganesh chaturthi celebrations in Andheri, in spite of being a Muslim dominated community.I was amazed to see Shabnam calling a hindu elderly woman “maasi”. When asked, she very innocently replied, “meri mummy ke liye behen se zada hain”, which means that that lady is more to her mother than her own sister.

Group/Caste dynamics: As per the members of the community, they have not yet seen a communal clash in the community. All religions and castes live in unison at Juhu galli and they couldn’t be more proud of their unity. There are some clashes among the members regarding money and water issues at times, but they are usually small scale and are resolved by the elders of the community.

Health

Issues: The most wide spread health issue faced by the community leads from infrastructure failure. Due to potholes, broken roads and lack of sanitation, there is major mosquito infestation in the community, which leads to diseases like dengue and malaria. Malaria has been the worry of the people there for the longest of times.

Medical facilities : There are 2-3 local clinics in the vicinity and around 8 pharmacies, out of which 1 is open throughout the day and night. But usually the people do not prefer to go to these clinics as they are expensive and charge anywhere between 3-500 for one visit. The preferred hospital is cooper hospital in Juhu, which is a free government hospital. Apart from that, BMC municipal hospital is the next best choice, which charges approximately half of what a local clinic would.

A local clinic

Cooper hospital

Education

Facilities: The community lacks availability of good educational facilities. The government schools in the vicinity are not up to the mark and all the other private schools are too expensive(500-1000 a month) for the people to afford. Most people send their kids to school/college in localities as far away as Borivali due to lack of opportunities in the locality.

Aspirations: Almost all the families in the locality are sending their kids to schools and want them to have a better future that they do. The families are highly aspirational and so are the children. More and more kids are going to college after finishing in school. They also work alongside, to support their families, but also have a will to make lives better for themselves and their families.

Learning

Management learning

The study of the community made me realize that as a manager, no matter what your field of work is, you can’t ignore the bottom of the pyramid. The next source of big business is the urban poor. They are young, aspirational people, who strive each day to make their lives better and get their kids out of poverty and into a better world. With their income, their consumption is rising and as business managers, we can’t afford to ignore the wave of upliftment, which might change the face of business as we know it.

Personal learning

This study has given me more than management lessons. By listening to people, who struggle to use the bathroom and get clean water has made me appreciate the little things I took for granted. I have been blessed with so much and I still complain and here are people, who make do with so little, with nothing but smiles on their faces.