Postcolonialising Informality? Varley, Ann
Environment and planning. D, Society & space,
01/2013, Letnik:
31, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Urban informality has been the subject of renewed attention in recent years, with a resurgence of interest from architecture and planning. A focus on informality has however been criticised as ...reviving colonial hierarchies, characterising entire cities in terms of lack and rendering them perpetually inferior to Western cities. The call to postcolonialise urban studies has been answered by an emerging literature which has neglected Latin America. This paper therefore examines recent work on urban informality in the region that resonates with other scholarship at the intersection of postcolonial and urban studies. The Latin American work is characterised by an emphasis on informality as resistance and by challenges to the formal/informal binary. Its ‘favela-isation’ of the continent can however perpetuate dualistic interpretations, entrenching or inverting stereotypes rather than disrupting them. The paper also asks what postcolonial readings of informality from elsewhere can contribute to understanding Latin American experience.
An extensive literature opposes the provision of property titles for the residents of informal settlements. One concern is that titling leads to commodification and the market-driven displacement of ...the original inhabitants. Another is that it propagates the ideology of private ownership, undermines collective solidarity and demobilises social movements. This article, based on observations from Mexico City and Guadalajara, finds little evidence of displacement but highlights the importance of location. It supports the view that formalisation undermines resistance, but argues that titling does so by meeting rather than creating the desire of the urban poor for private property and homeownership.
Changes to Mexico's Constitution in the 1990s marked the end of agrarian reform and the Revolutionary land regime which had allowed beneficiaries to work but not to sell their land. New legislation ...allowed individual parcels of ejido land to be converted into private property. Many observers link this ‘privatization’ with a transformation of the periurban landscape resulting from private developers’ construction of mass ‘social housing’ developments: a classic example of neoliberal urbanism. We examine evidence for the Mexico City Metropolitan Area, finding that, although some developments do occupy former ejido land, developers mostly prefer private property, including former haciendas. Private sector interests are wary of the ejido for reasons that stem from its place in the corporatist political system that characterized twentieth‐century Mexico, and the patchwork of privatized individual parcels clashes with developers’ land acquisition strategies. Ejidatarios often prefer to retain control over their land, selling plots piecemeal. Our findings demonstrate the continuing significance of urban informality—on a scale that exceeds the development of ejido land for formal housing—and the intertwining of formal and informal. We interpret these interrelated processes of housing production as legacies of corporatism, underlining the significance of political influences on Latin American neoliberalism.
Abstract Changes to Mexico's Constitution in the 1990s marked the end of agrarian reform and the Revolutionary land regime which had allowed beneficiaries to work but not to sell their land. New ...legislation allowed individual parcels of ejido land to be converted into private property. Many observers link this ‘privatization’ with a transformation of the periurban landscape resulting from private developers’ construction of mass ‘social housing’ developments: a classic example of neoliberal urbanism. We examine evidence for the Mexico City Metropolitan Area, finding that, although some developments do occupy former ejido land, developers mostly prefer private property, including former haciendas. Private sector interests are wary of the ejido for reasons that stem from its place in the corporatist political system that characterized twentieth‐century Mexico, and the patchwork of privatized individual parcels clashes with developers’ land acquisition strategies. Ejidatarios often prefer to retain control over their land, selling plots piecemeal. Our findings demonstrate the continuing significance of urban informality—on a scale that exceeds the development of ejido land for formal housing—and the intertwining of formal and informal. We interpret these interrelated processes of housing production as legacies of corporatism, underlining the significance of political influences on Latin American neoliberalism.
That there is a need to decolonise knowledge could perhaps be described as a truth now universally acknowledged. Contemporary thinkers challenge the division between a global north producing ...scientific knowledge and theory, and a global south supplying 'unprocessed data' (Comaroff and Comaroff, 2012b: 1). Calls to theorise from the south have emerged alongside a recognition that cities now house most of the world's population, and that it is the global south which is now leading the world's urbanisation. Not surprisingly, then, urbanists have responded enthusiastically to the demand for 'new geographies' of urban theory (Roy, 2009; 819; Robinson, 2014).
The connections between home and the self have been the subject of debate in recent years. As a metaphor for a bounded and stable identity, the ideal of home is regarded as dangerous by theorists who ...oppose a politics based on nostalgic appeals to unity and privilege. Home is criticised as an exclusionary and depoliticising space. Scholars such as Iris Marion Young and Geraldine Pratt argue, however, that we should be wary of rejecting home, since the material space of home provides valuable support for individual and collective narratives of identity. In this paper I reflect on these debates in the light of my father's experience of dementia and the move from his own home into residential care. I examine alternatives to the account of identity on which critiques of home as exclusionary space are based, such as narrative identities and Jessica Benjamin's intersubjective approach to the self and the concrete other.
Securing property rights in both rural landholdings and urban housing is a much-debated feature of current development policy. Providing title for the household does not guarantee security for women, ...and legal equality may fail to prevent gender differences in property ownership. A pro-active approach to women’s property rights is needed. Disenchantment with state programs delivering individual titles has led to calls for alternative strategies emphasizing local or customary authorities and procedures. This paper questions the ability of either approach to address gender inequalities effectively without affirmative action but suggests that informal responses within state institutions can help.
Existe una extensa bibliografía en contra del otorgamiento de títulos de propiedad en los asentamientos informales. Una inquietud es que dicho otorgamiento conlleva la mercantilización y el ...desplazamiento de los habitantes originales impulsado por el mercado. Otra es que propaga la ideología de la propiedad privada, socava la solidaridad colectiva y desmoviliza los movimientos sociales. Este artículo, basado en observaciones realizadas en la Ciudad de México y Guadalajara, reporta poca evidencia de desplazamiento, pero resalta la importancia de la ubicación. Apoya la opinión de que la formalización mina la resistencia, pero argumenta que la concesión de títulos de propiedad lo logra al satisfacer, más que generar, el anhelo de los pobres de las zonas urbanas de poseer propiedad privada y su propia vivienda.
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