116 Sammanthranapura is also bounded on the north and west by flood-prone waterways that limit connectivity to other parts of the city and borders only one other neighborhood by land. A settlement in Colombo’s Kirulapana suburb, however, is within reach of public transit, government buildings, schools, and a waste disposal facility. The team noted that physical access to resources, although important to document for conversations with policymakers, was not always an indicator that migrant communities had stable housing and opportunity for social mobility. Rather, the research points to inclusion in social and political protections as being key to better outcomes. “We’ve shown that these populations live, not necessarily on the geographical margins of cities, but on the margins in an economic, political, and social sense,” Collyer said. “Some of these communities are actually right in the center of cities, and yet they are excluded from systems like tenants’ rights and fair wages, and so people there become trapped.” Stories Highlight Links between Physical and Social Mobility In addition to exploring the regional and local geographies of Colombo’s migrant communities, the research team set out to learn more about migrants’ own experiences moving into and within the city. The team used a novel personal mapping method to interview residents of informal settlements, filming individuals as they drew a map of their migration journey. Then, some of the drawings were transferred to GIS. The personal maps revealed that people often moved between several informal living situations in pursuit of stable housing and income. “We learned that, while many of these individuals first left home as teenagers, it would take nearly 30 years for them to settle in one place,” Alikhan said. Although job changes and family needs were cited as reasons for relocating, many interviewees also reported moves resulting from forced evictions. The researchers found that such evictions had a lasting, negative impact on migrants’ physical and social mobility. Physically, as evidenced in interviews and personal mapping exercises, evictions set individuals back as they relocated Researchers use GIS to map every informal settlement in Colombo, Sri Lanka. A settlement in Lunupokuna is bounded on one side by wetlands and a landfill on the other. Source: Survey Department, Colombo and Open StreetMap 2017, © Sakeena Alikhan. The Sammanthranapura informal settlement is bounded on two sides by water, increasing flood risk and limiting how residents can access other parts of the city. Source: Survey Department, Colombo and Open StreetMap 2017, © Sakeena Alikhan.
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