ABSTRACT
This chapter considers women’s strategies for leisure while working graveyard shifts in Mumbai’s neoliberal call centers alongside ongoing social movements in South Asia aimed at countering patriarchal norms that regulate women’s access to urban public space. Across these realms, there are tussles between modernity and tradition that shape decision-making processes. Taking cues from the right to the city paradigm, one can observe that both entail an appropriation of the urban, with social movements extending their goals to participation as well. Despite differing scale and intent, an analytical consideration of women’s night-time leisure with ongoing social movements can paint a broader picture on gendered reclamations of urban public space in the Global South.
