ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on anthropological research narratives conducted in two slums 2001–2002; and drawn from another slum in 2016 in Dhaka city to reveal how urban slum residents endure and navigate through the maze of persistent insecurities and uncertainties of life. Millions of individuals in slum settlements remain under perennial silent tyranny, managing one crisis after another, with comprehensive support from the development sector, donor community, and the state missing. The chapter considers how poverty is experienced and understood as a public health phenomenon through its intrinsic interconnectedness to all aspects of human health and well-being. Urban poverty is a global phenomenon persistently challenging sustainable public health. Chintar rog speaks of precarious conditions, perpetual adversity, and impossible choices of the residents, as well as forcing us to think about the ontological insecurities present in the deprivations and how this is embodied in the meanings and experiences of health and illness.
