ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author explores some of the relations and networks maintained by women in the two areas focusing on the domestic arena and the impact of the upgrading project upon it. Women's lives in the squatter areas of Amman show that private is not 'inside' and public 'outside' the dwelling. In the 'Jabal', the families of the squatter area have been part of an urban upgrading project since 1980, along with three other sites in Amman. Women's relationships with one another within the dwelling unit raise the question of what constitutes the 'household' and the 'domestic group'; and their strategies vis-a-vis the state and its agencies raise the question of the boundaries between the public and the private. Women further achieved their ends by carrying the domestic domain into the corridors of the public, that is by constant visiting of the urban development department and other offices.
