1.
Zapata Campos, María José, 1972, et al.
(författare)
Residents' collective strategies of resistance in Global South cities' informal settlements: Space, scale and knowledge
2022
Ingår i: Cities. - : Elsevier BV. - 0264-2751. ; 125
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat) abstract
This paper examines the strategies of resistance articulated by residents of informal settlements response to urban exclusion. Building upon resistance and urban social movements literature the paper is informed by the case of the Villa Rodrigo Bueno in Buenos Aires, a self-constructed villa miseria, and its residents' stories of resistance to attempts of evictions and upgrading programs. In the paper we show how resistance is mobilized, first through its simultaneous disconnection, due to its remoteness and isolation; and reconnection to local and global supportive networks. While disconnection facilitated self-construction, densification and the blooming of informal entrepreneurship; reconnection through relational and multiscalar sites enabled unexpected encounters with distant actors that contributed to resist evictions. Second, the long-term learning and development of self-knowledge (i.e. construction, or housing law), embedded in the remoteness of the informal settlement, contributed to shift expertise from city officers to residents; redefining the role of informal residents into active citizens and experts in policy making, and turning informal settlements into settings of wider social change.
2.
Scaini, Anna, et al.
(författare)
Pathways from research to sustainable development: Insights from ten research projects in sustainability and resilience
2024
Ingår i: AMBIO. - : SPRINGER. - 0044-7447 .- 1654-7209.
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat) abstract
Drawing on collective experience from ten collaborative research projects focused on the Global South, we identify three major challenges that impede the translation of research on sustainability and resilience into better-informed choices by individuals and policy-makers that in turn can support transformation to a sustainable future. The three challenges comprise: (i) converting knowledge produced during research projects into successful knowledge application; (ii) scaling up knowledge in time when research projects are short-term and potential impacts are long-term; and (iii) scaling up knowledge across space, from local research sites to larger-scale or even global impact. Some potential pathways for funding agencies to overcome these challenges include providing targeted prolonged funding for dissemination and outreach, and facilitating collaboration and coordination across different sites, research teams, and partner organizations. By systematically documenting these challenges, we hope to pave the way for further innovations in the research cycle.
3.
Zapata Campos, María José, 1972, et al.
(författare)
Inclusive recycling movements: a green deep democracy from below
2020
Ingår i: Environment and Urbanization. - : SAGE Publications. - 0956-2478 .- 1746-0301. ; In Press
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat) abstract
This paper examines the multiple strategies articulated by grassroots recycler networks to bring about socioenvironmental change. The paper shows how these networks are an emblematic case of grassroots governmentality, whereby urban poor communities contribute to building more inclusive environmental regimes by developing technologies of power more typical of the powerful. These technologies include enumeration, with its resulting self-knowledge; the production of discourses and rationalities of social inclusion and environmental sustainability; and engagement in open and diverse alliances, at times with actors holding apparently antagonistic interests. The paper also reveals how recycling networks are a representative case of deep and green democracy. It is deep democracy, as grassroots networks strive to gain deep and true representativeness in their territories. It is green democracy, as it illustrates alternative pathways to environmental governance that is not limited to state and global organizations, but that also includes a range of control techniques emanating from the communities themselves.
4.
Zapata Campos, María José, 1972, et al.
(författare)
Organising grassroots infrastructure: The (in)visible work of organisational (in)completeness
2023
Ingår i: Urban Studies. - : SAGE Publications. - 0042-0980 .- 1360-063X. ; 60:1
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat) abstract
In this article we build on the concept of incompleteness, as recently developed in both organisa- tional and urban studies, to improve our understanding of the collective actions of grassroots organisations in creating and governing critical infrastructures in the changing and resource-scarce contexts of urban informal settlements. Empirically, the article is informed by the case of resident associations providing critical services and infrastructure in informal settlements in Kisumu, Kenya. Findings suggest three organisational processes that grassroots organisations develop for the production and governance of incomplete grassroots infrastructures: shaping a partial organi- sation but creating the illusion of a formal and complete organisation; crafting critical (and often hidden) material and organisational infrastructures for the subsistence of dormant (but still visi- ble) structures; and moulding nested infrastructure that shelters layers of floating and autono- mous groups embedded in communities. In a resource-poor environment, the strategy is to create incompleteness, less organisation and to keep it partial and limited to a minimum of ele- ments. The article also explores the political implications of organisational and infrastructural incompleteness by examining how it leads to efforts to craft loose and ambiguous governmental arrangements, connecting them materially and politically to formal infrastructure systems. These governmental arrangements are shifting and in the making, and therefore also incomplete. The article reveals how grassroots organisations mobilise a wide range of (in)visibility approaches. It concludes by exposing the hidden power of ‘incompleteness’ and the potential in hiding certain elements of incompleteness from outsiders, while rendering other elements visible when per- ceived as useful.
5.
Zapata Campos, María José, 1972, et al.
(författare)
Organising grassroots initiatives for a more inclusive governance: constructing the city from below
2019
Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The project examines how grassroots organizations and networks providing urban critical services in informal settlements contribute to improve the quality of life of urban dwellers and to more inclusive forms of urban governance, constructing the city from below. The project is informed by the study of Kisumu’s informal settlements’ Resident Associations, the Water Delegated Management Model, and the Kisumu Waste Actors Network. The study adopted an action-research approach with researchers working with citizens, politicians, officers and entrepreneurs in all stages of the research process and used a combination of methods including document studies, ethnographic and participatory observations, visual ethnography, interviews, focus groups, social media analysis and stakeholder work- shops as well as participatory videotaping. The study discusses a) the institutionalization of grassroots organizations for the delivery of critical infrastructure and services and their need to gain, regain and maintain legitimacy; b) their flexible and nested structure facili- tating their resilience; c) their embeddedness in the communities’ knowledge and assets, and their role as social and institutional entrepreneurs to bridge informal settlements with city governance; d) the redefinition of the roles of the citizen, from passive into active agents, and its transformation into more autonomous and insurgent citizens; e) the blending of civic and material rationales and the construction of more fluid identities allowing citizens to draw pragmatically from a broader repertoire of roles and resources; f) and the creation of grassroots organizations as a collective process that emerge from different directions, with the ability to become gateways but also gatekeepers, or the top of the grass at their communities. It concludes with recommendations to informal settlements’ resident grass- roots organizations, public officers, NGOs, politicians, researchers and citizens in general, engaged in constructing a more inclusive city governance from below.
6.
7.
Gutberlet, Jutta, et al.
(författare)
Socio-environmental entrepreneurship and the provision of critical services in informal settlements
2016
Ingår i: Environment & Urbanization. - : SAGE Publications. - 0956-2478 .- 1746-0301. ; 28:1
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat) abstract
This paper contributes to the understanding of processes by which small-scale entrepreneurs who provide household waste collection in informal settlements succeed in formalized co-production of such services. The paper draws on the social and solidarity economy and social and environmental entrepreneurship theoretical frameworks, which offer complementary understandings of diverse strategies to tackle everyday challenges. Two questions are addressed: How do informal waste collection initiatives get established, succeed and grow? What are the implications of this transition for the entrepreneurs themselves, the communities, the environmental governance system and the scholarship? A case study is presented, based on three waste picker entrepreneurs in Kisumu, Kenya, who have consolidated and expanded their operations in informal settlements but also extended social and environmental activities into formal settlements. The paper demonstrates how initiatives, born as community-based organizations, become successful social micro-enterprises, driven by a desire to address socioenvironmental challenges in their neighbourhoods.
8.
Kain, Jaan-Henrik, 1960, et al.
(författare)
Characteristics, challenges and innovations of waste picker organizations: A comparative perspective between Latin American and East African countries
2022
Ingår i: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 17:7
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat) abstract
Waste picker organisations (WPOs) around the globe collect, transport and process waste to earn their living but represent a widely excluded, marginalised and impoverished segment of society. WPOs are highly innovative, created by grassroots out of “nothing” to deliver economic, social and environmental sustainability. Still, we do not know how such innovations are developed, and how they are disseminated and adopted by other groups. This article examines characteristics, challenges and innovations of WPOs across five countries in Latin America and East Africa. It is based on quantitative and qualitative data regarding modes of organisation and management, gender, received support, business orientations, environmental and social contributions, and innovations developed in response to multiple challenges. The paper provides a comprehensive understanding of WPOs’ activities and their grassroots innovations in the Global South. The study shows how WPOs contribute significantly to the economic, social and environmental sustainability of the societies they serve as well as the wider urban societies. To start and maintain WPOs in informal settlements with a lack of infrastructure, institutional frameworks, and public and private investors is a difficult quest. WPOs take many different organisational forms depending on the complexity of local realities, ranging from advanced collective organization as cooperatives to small self-help groups and microentrepreneurs. Self-organisation into regional and national networks provides economic opportunities, autonomy and stability as well as political influence. Yet, institutional support is fundamental and the lack thereof threatens their existence. Sustaining WPOs as important providers of socio-environmental benefits through governmental and non-governmental actions is a worthwhile undertaking that builds sustainability.
9.
Kain, Jaan-Henrik, 1960, et al.
(författare)
Co-production of Services in Informal Settlements: Waste management in Kisumu, Kenya
2017
Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
In many informal settlements, a large number of informal sectors waste pickers collect and separate household waste, providing an important service. However, waste pickers represent one of the most excluded, impoverished and disempowered segments of society. This study explores the challenges and potential solutions for the co-production of participatory waste management services in informal settlements, using the case of informal settlements in Kisumu, Kenya. Researchers conducted interviews, focus group discussions, participatory workshops and action on ground as part of extensive eldwork between 2014 and 2015. This report illustrates the challenges and opportunities to improve waste management in informal settlements through community participation and the inclusion of waste pickers. The results of the project are presented in three sections based on different academic articles where the result of the project rst was published. The rst article “Bridging Weak Links of Solid Waste Management in Informal Settlements” presents a number of opportunities that can be used to improve waste management systems in informal settlements. The second article “Socio-environmental entrepreneurship and the provision of critical services in informal settlements” examines the role of waste entrepreneurs in informal settlements as environmental stewards. Although seeing the contribution of waste entrepreneurs as very positive, however this article still questions the privati- zation of important services, such as waste collection. There is a risk of developing clientelistic relationships, of eroding collective solutions for the servicing of neighbourhoods and cities, and of abandoning the least af uent but majority of residents and settlements. The nal article is titled “Translating policies into in- formal settlements’ critical services: reframing, anchoring and muddling through”. It discusses the Kisumu Integrated Sustainable Waste Management Plan (KISWAMP) that succeeded to dignify, or reframe, waste picking as a critical community service and as a decent profession. Waste management also gained internal status as a legitimate area of policy making within the municipality and was turned it into an important service worth paying for. Yet it did not suf ciently anchor some of the new practices in the informal settlements, such as the partnership arrangements with waste entrepreneurs or the maintenance of waste transfer points. The report outlines challenges and opportunities at the same time, and ends with some policy recommendation for integrating waste pickers in the provision of services at the municipal level.
10.
Kain, Jaan-Henrik, 1960, et al.
(författare)
Collective Strategies of Resistance in Compact Global South Cities. Stories From the Residents of the Villa Rodrigo Bueno
2018
Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of what citizen-driven strategies are developed to cope with informal urbanisation and urban compactness. More precisely, the paper explores the intersection between informal urbanisation processes, informal economy and networks of solidarity and citizenship, in the context of compact cities. In particular, this paper aims to examine the creation of novel and collective forms of strategizing and organising resistance articulated from the informal settlements to build up alternative notions of the city from below. In order to do that the paper is empirically informed by the case of Argentina, a country that has experienced in the last decades the revival of villas miseria (misery town or shanty towns), as a result of successive economic crisis and migration waves. The history of one of these villas miserias, Rodrigo Bueno, in Puerto Madero, the most expensive urban development in Argentina, serves to illustrate the creation and maintenance of the informal city as an alternative urban logic, as well as the continuous process of stabilisation and resistance to the institutional arrangements threatening its existence.
