| 1. |
- Arfvidsson, Helen, 1981, et al.
(author)
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Engaging with and measuring informality in the proposed Urban Sustainable Development Goal
- 2017
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In: African Geographical Review. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1937-6812 .- 2163-2642. ; 36:1, s. 100-114
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- A unique project by Mistra Urban Futures to test the draft targets and indicators of the proposed Urban Sustainable Development Goal (Goal 11) in five diverse cities in Europe, Africa, and Asia revealed numerous complexities and differences in data availability, potential accessibility, and relevance. Deploying the findings from Kisumu and Cape Town, we highlight the particular challenges posed by widespread urban informality. Similar issues apply across the global South. The targets and indicators rely on official/formal data, which are often of questionable reliability and exclude unregulated activities. The particularly problematic conceptualization of the slum/informal settlements indicator is examined in depth, along with indicators on transport and waste management. © 2016 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
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| 2. |
- Barinaga, Ester, et al.
(author)
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Community Currencies as Means of Local Economic Empowerment
- 2019
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Community currencies have emerged as a tool for building more inclusive local economic development and governance. Grassroots organisations in Nairobi and Mombasa (Kenya) have been experimenting with this form of local monies. Communities in informal settlements in Kisumu have shown interest in intro- ducing their own community currency. Challenges remain concerning the best diffusion strategy of such grassroots monetary innovations among communities and local governments. This policy brief focuses on how to involve residents, civil society, small entrepreneurs as well as local government officers and politicians so as to increase local representation and participation in this grassroots innovation
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| 3. |
- Barinaga, Ester, et al.
(author)
-
Community Currencies as Means of Local Economic Empowerment : Innovations from Mombasa and Nairobi to Kisumu, Kenya
- 2019
-
In: Swedish International Centre for Local Democracy (ICLD). ; :4
-
Journal article (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Community currencies have emerged as a tool for building more inclusive local economic development and governance. Grassroots organisations in Nairobi and Mombasa (Kenya) have been experimenting with this form of local monies. Communities in informal settlements in Kisumu have shown interest in introducing their own community currency. Challenges remain concerning the best diffusion strategy of such grassroots monetary innovations among communities and local governments. This policy brief focuses on how to involve residents, civil society, small entrepreneurs as well as local government officers and politicians so as to increase local representation and participation in this grassroots innovation.
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Capuano Mascarenhas, Luciana, et al.
(author)
-
Multi-criteria analysis of municipal solid waste treatment technologies to support decision-making in Kisumu, Kenya
- 2021
-
In: Environmental Challenges. - : Elsevier BV. - 2667-0100. ; 4
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The directive to close the dumpsite in Kisumu, Kenya has made the search for alternative solid waste treatment and disposal technologies urgent. The aim of this research is to support the decision-making process by analyzing multiple socioeconomic and environmental parameters of salient solid waste treatment options. We used multi-criteria analysis to assess and compare anaerobic digestion, sanitary landfill, bioreactor landfill, and incineration. Informed by field observations and interviews, the chosen assessment criteria were economic costs, electricity generation, GHG emissions, land footprint, air pollution, soil and water contamination, and compatibility with recycling efforts. A literature review yielded quantitative and qualitative data that supported the analysis and the ranking of solutions according to performance in each criterion. Our analysis shows that anaerobic digestion is a suitable solution for Kisumu, due to its reduced environmental impacts, production of electricity and fertilizer, suitability to treat the large organic waste stream generated in the city, and compatibility with independent recycling activities. Landfilling represents a cheap solution; however, previous failed initiatives indicate that finding available land close to main waste generators is a challenge. Incineration is costly and requires advanced air quality control equipment and high combustibility of incoming waste, which is not the case for Kisumu, where over 60% of waste stream is organic/wet. Our results and recommendations are targeted for the Kisumu case, but they can be relevant for researchers and policymakers elsewhere, especially in low- and middle-income cities facing similar challenges.
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- de Azevedo, Adalberto Mantovani Martiniano, et al.
(author)
-
Inclusive Waste Governance and Grassroots Innovations for Social, Environmental And Economic Change
- 2018
-
Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Participants of two research projects (Recycling Networks: Grassroots resilience tackling climate, environmental and poverty challenges (funded by the Swedish Research Council) and Mapping Waste Governance (funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada) collaborate in offering a critical inter- and transdisciplinary perspective on waste and waste actors (waste picker cooperatives, associations, community-based organizations, partnerships, networks and NGOs). The research is conducted in the following cities: Buenos Aires (Argentina), São Paulo (Brazil), Vancouver and Montreal (Canada), Kisumu (Kenya), Managua (Nicaragua) and Dar es Salaam (Tanzania). Together we examine the challenges that innovative grassroots initiatives and networks encounter in generating livelihoods to improve household waste collection and recycling, particularly in informal settlements of global South cities. We seek to map waste governance and successful waste management initiatives, arrangements and policies involving grassroots initiatives. In this report, we present a brief description of solid waste governance in the cities where we conducted fieldwork. We then illuminate some of our findings on grassroots innovations involving waste pickers or waste workers in these cities. Both research projects combine multi-case studies of waste picker groups and local government initiatives, apply qualitative research tools and participatory action research (e.g. photo voice, participant observation, workshops, surveys and interviews). We are interested in understanding processes, challenges and opportunities related to how these grassroots initiatives and networks operate to bring about socio-environmental and economic change? How they address challenges and what the assets are in everyday waste governance that can be explored to make waste governance more sustainable and thus more inclusive? Researchers involved in these two projects, key stakeholders from grassroots initiatives in these countries, representatives from some international waste picker networks and local and regional government officials from Kisumu, Kenya, met between 23rd and 29th of April 2018, in Kisumu to present and discuss the results of the first year of research activities, which are herewith documented.
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| 9. |
- Gutberlet, Jutta, et al.
(author)
-
Bridging Weak Links of Solid Waste Management in Informal Settlements
- 2017
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In: Journal of Environment and Development. - : SAGE Publications. - 1070-4965 .- 1552-5465. ; 26:1, s. 106-131
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Many cities in the global South suffer from vast inadequacies and deficiencies in their solid waste management. In the city of Kisumu in Kenya, waste management is frag- mented and insufficient with most household waste remaining uncollected. Solid waste enters and leaves public space through an intricate web of connected, mostly informal, actions. This article scrutinizes waste management of informal settlements, based on the case of Kisumu, to identify weak links in waste manage- ment chains and find neighborhood responses to bridge these gaps. Systems theory and action net theory support our analysis to understand the actions, actors, and processes associated with waste and its management. We use qualitative data from fieldwork and hands on engagement in waste management in Kisumu. Our main conclusion is that new waste initiatives should build on existing waste management practices already being performed within informal settlements by waste scavengers, waste pickers, waste entrepreneurs, and community-based organizations.
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| 10. |
- Gutberlet, Jutta, et al.
(author)
-
From community-based organization to socio-environmental entrepreneur. The case of household waste collection in Kisumu’s informal settlements
- 2015
-
In: 5th CIRIEC International Research Conference on Social Economy 15–18 July 2015, Lisbon, Portugal.
-
Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper aims to understand the process by which socio-environmental entrepreneurs providing waste collection services in informal settlements succeed, to consolidate their operations. The entrepreneurs in the recycling sector described in our paper are part of emerging experiences, most prominent in the global South, that fall under the Social and Solidarity Economy and the evolving field of Social Entrepreneurship. These theoretical frameworks offer complementary strategies to address some of the challenges such entrepreneurs face in their everyday context. The paper will combine both theoretical frameworks, which have inspired the two main questions addressed in this paper: What makes an informal waste collection initiative get established, succeed, and grow? And, how can Social and Solidarity Economy and Social Entrepreneurship frameworks support these micro-enterprises? Methodologically, the paper is based on the case study of three waste pickers entrepreneurs in Kisumu, Kenya, characterized as social micro-enterprises, who have succeeded to consolidate their operations in informal and formal settlements. In-depth interviews, observations and document analysis have been used to collect data. Inspired by Social and Solidarity Economy and Social Entrepreneurship theories we have analyzed our data (mostly transcriptions from interviews) following patterns of creative abduction in back- and-forth moves between sorting, coding, probing of the data, and collecting new data until reconstructing the story of the three socio-environmental entrepreneurs. Our findings show how these initiatives, born as community-based organizations (CBOs), succeeded to consolidate and expand by developing towards socio-environmental entrepreneurship models. In the paper we discuss this transition process and question its implications both for the entrepreneurs and the communities they serve.
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| 11. |
- Gutberlet, Jutta, et al.
(author)
-
Socio-environmental entrepreneurship and the provision of critical services in informal settlements
- 2016
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In: Environment & Urbanization. - : SAGE Publications. - 0956-2478 .- 1746-0301. ; 28:1, s. 205-222
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)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.
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| 12. |
- Hansson, Stina, 1974, et al.
(author)
-
Developing and testing the urban sustainable development goal’s targets and indicators - a five city study
- 2016
-
In: Environment & Urbanization. - : SAGE Publications. - 0956-2478 .- 1746-0301. ; 28:1, s. 49-63
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The campaign for the inclusion of a specifically urban goal within the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was challenging. Numerous divergent interests were involved, while urban areas worldwide are also extremely heterogeneous. It was essential to minimize the number of targets and indicators while still capturing critical urban dimensions relevant to human development. It was also essential to test the targets and indicators. This paper reports the findings of a unique comparative pilot project involving co-production between researchers and local authority officials in five diverse secondary and intermediate cities: Bangalore (Bengaluru), India; Cape Town, South Africa; Gothenburg, Sweden; Greater Manchester, United Kingdom; and Kisumu, Kenya. Each city faced problems in providing all the data required, and each also proposed various changes to maximize the local relevance of particular targets and indicators. This reality check provided invaluable inputs to the process of finalizing the urban SDG prior to the formal announcement of the entire SDG set by the UN Secretary-General in late September 2015.
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| 13. |
- Haysom, Gareth, et al.
(author)
-
Food systems sustainability: An examination of different viewpoints on food system change
- 2019
-
In: Sustainability. - : MDPI AG. - 2071-1050. ; 11:12
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Global food insecurity levels remain stubbornly high. One of the surest ways to grasp the scale and consequence of global inequality is through a food systems lens. In a predominantly urban world, urban food systems present a useful lens to engage a wide variety of urban (and global) challenges—so called ‘wicked problems.’ This paper describes a collaborative research project between four urban food system research units, two European and two African. The project purpose was to seek out solutions to what lay between, across and within the different approaches applied in the understanding of each city’s food system challenges. Contextual differences and immediate (perceived) needs resulted in very different views on the nature of the challenge and the solutions required. Value positions of individuals and their disciplinary “enclaves” presented further boundaries. The paper argues that finding consensus provides false solutions. Rather the identification of novel approaches to such wicked problems is contingent of these differences being brought to the fore, being part of the conversation, as devices through which common positions can be discovered, where spaces are created for the realisation of new perspectives, but also, where difference is celebrated as opposed to censored.
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| 14. |
- Kain, Jaan-Henrik, 1960, et al.
(author)
-
Assumed Qualities of Compact Cities: Divergences Between the Global North and the Global South in the Research Discourse
- 2016
-
In: 17th N-AERUS Conference: 2016 Gothenburg (Sweden). Gothenburg, 16-19 November, 2016..
-
Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Compact cities are promoted widely in policy as a response to current societal challenges, but it is unclear or ambiguous what qualities or benefits a compact city is supposed to deliver. In research, the compact city concept is widely debated in the literature, and there are many arguments both for and against compact cities. However, many studies or reviews tend to apply a delimited approach, discussing a confined number of qualities or base the assessment on quite narrow empirical material. Research is also carried out from within a number of separate disciplines or “discourses”. An improved understanding of the wide spectrum of compact city qualities would support better planning, governance and management of cities. This paper therefore aims to provide an improved understanding of the wide spectrum of compact city qualities in support of better planning, governance and management of cities in the Global South. The objective is to present a review of current articles discussing the compact city to capture similarities and differences in the academic discourse between Global North and Global South contexts, and to outline a comprehensive compact city taxonomy. The analysis is based on literature searches in the Scopus database for 2012-2015, using the search term “compact city”. A quantitative assessment was carried out, sifting out what terms are used to label purported (or debated) qualities of compact cities. Papers are sorted into different categories according to geoeconomic context (i.e., Global North, BRICS, Global South). The outcome is an extended taxonomy of compact city qualities, including twelve categories. Weaknesses in compact city research aimed at cities in the Global South were identified, especially linked to nature, health, environment issues, quality of life, sociocultural aspects, justice and economy, as well as a significant lack of compact city research linked to urban adaptability and resilience.
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| 15. |
- Kain, Jaan-Henrik, 1960, et al.
(author)
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Characteristics, challenges and innovations of waste picker organizations: A comparative perspective between Latin American and East African countries
- 2022
-
In: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 17:7
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)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.
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| 16. |
- Kain, Jaan-Henrik, 1960, et al.
(author)
-
Co-production of Services in Informal Settlements: Waste management in Kisumu, Kenya
- 2017
-
Reports (other academic/artistic)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.
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| 17. |
- Kain, Jaan-Henrik, 1960, et al.
(author)
-
Collective Strategies of Resistance in Compact Global South Cities. Stories From the Residents of the Villa Rodrigo Bueno
- 2018
-
Conference paper (other academic/artistic)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.
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| 18. |
- Kain, Jaan-Henrik, 1960, et al.
(author)
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Combating poverty and building democracy through the coproduction of participatory waste management services The case of Kisumu City, Kenya
- 2015
-
Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In an increasingly urbanized world, a third of the global urban population will soon live in informal settlements1. Many of these areas are poorly connected to basic services, such as management of household waste2. Instead, an extensive informal sector of waste pickers collects and separates household waste3 4. By doing so, they make a significant contribution to improving the health of residents and local environments, to recover resources, to create jobs and income among the urban poor, and even to reduce the carbon footprint of their cities.
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| 19. |
- Kain, Jaan-Henrik, 1960, et al.
(author)
-
Obunga Clean Up
- 2015
-
Other publication (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Combating poverty and building democracy through the co-production of participatory waste management services: The case of Kisumu, Kenya A research project by: The inhabitants of Obunga, Nyalenda and Manyatta The many waste actors in Kisumu City of Kisumu County Government of Kisumu Kisumu Waste Management Services KWAMS Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology JOOUST Maseno University University of Victoria University of Gothenburg Chalmers University of Technology Funded by: The Swedish International Centre for Local Democracy ICLD
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| 20. |
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| 21. |
- Kain, Jaan-Henrik, 1960, et al.
(author)
-
Translating Policies into Informal Settlements' Critical Services: Reframing, Anchoring and Muddling Through
- 2016
-
In: Public Administration and Development. - : Wiley. - 0271-2075 .- 1099-162X. ; 36:5, s. 330-346
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper examines how policies and plans are translated into informal settlements' practice. It builds on literature on policy implementation practice and organization studies, and more particularly, it applies the concepts of reframing, anchoring and muddling through. The paper is informed by the case of Kisumu City in Kenya and its Kisumu Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan and its implementation on Kisumu's informal settlements. The plan was funded by the Swedish International Development Agency through the United Nations Human Settlement Programme and implemented from 2007 to 2009. The study is based on action research carried out by a multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary group of researchers, through focus groups, participatory workshops, collaborative action, in-depth interviews, document analysis and observations. The paper examines what original aspects of Kisumu Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan were translated, that is, which ones faded out and which ones became stabilized into and travel as ‘best practices’ to other locations. The paper shows how the generation of ‘best practices’ can be loosely coupled with the practices that policy seeks to change. It concludes, in line with previous research in the field, how successful policy implementation is based on cultural and political interpretations rather on evidence of improved practices.
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| 22. |
- Kain, Jaan-Henrik, 1960, et al.
(author)
-
What Makes a Compact City? Differences Between Urban Research in the Global North and the Global South
- 2020
-
In: Offentlig förvaltning. Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration. - : University of Gothenburg. - 2000-8058. ; 24:4, s. 25-49
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Compact cities are promoted in policy as a response to current societal challenges, but it is unclear or ambiguous what qualities or benefits a compact city is supposed to deliver. The concept of the compact city is widely debated in the research literature, and there are numerous arguments both for and against compact cities. However, many studies or reviews tend to apply a delimited approach, discussing a confined number of qualities or basing the assessment on fairly narrow empirical material. Research is also carried out from within a number of separate disciplines or “discourses”. This paper aims to provide a clearer and more consolidated understanding of the wide spectrum of qualities that make up the compact city in support of better planning, governance and management of cities in the Global South. The objective is to present a review of current articles discussing the compact city in order to capture similarities and differences in the academic discourse between Global North and Global South contexts, and to outline a comprehensive compact city taxonomy. This is achieved by answering three questions: (1) What types of urban qualities are discussed in scientific articles studying urban compactness? (2) (How) do articles focusing on Global North and Global South contexts differ when it comes to exploring compact city qualities? and (3) Do the findings indicate areas of research withing the broader scope of urban compactness where research should be initiated or strengthened? The analysis is based on literature searches in the Scopus database for 2012-2015 using the search term “compact city”. A quantitative assessment was carried out, sifting out what terms are used to label purported (or debated) qualities of compact cities. Papers are sorted into different categories according to geoeconomic context (i.e. Global North, BRICS, Global South). The outcome is an extended taxonomy of compact city qualities, including twelve categories. Weaknesses in compact city research aimed at cities in the Global South were identified, linked in particular to nature, health, environmental issues, quality of life, sociocultural aspects, justice and economy, as well as a significant lack of compact city research linked to urban adaptability and resilience.
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| 23. |
- Kiaka, Richard, et al.
(author)
-
Gaming the System : How communities strategize around currencies, convertibility and cash transfers in Kenya
- 2024
-
In: European Journal of Social Sciences Studies. - 2501-8590. ; 9:6, s. 34-57
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We draw from ongoing empirical research on the evolution of community currencies in Kenya, to analyse ways through which beneficiaries of cash transfers mediated by a community cryptocurrency – Sarafu – appropriate power and assert agency to obtain optimum financial benefits of the development intervention. We found that beneficiaries of the intervention have developed a deep knowledge of converting Sarafu to donor-funded cash transfers in the national currency. Consequently, the beneficiaries innovatively game conversion rules, both as individual efforts and collective action, to increase the economic benefits they draw from the cash transfers. We argue that development beneficiaries, instead of merely being subjects of development intervention, are active makers of their own economic lives and have a profound understanding of development projects, which they creatively exploit for their own benefit. By doing so, we further argue, beneficiaries contribute to the continuous structuring of interventions by putting development agencies on their toes and forcing them to revise their approaches and strengthen weak points. We conclude that assigning agency to development beneficiaries has the theoretical benefit of unravelling and appreciating the multidirectional flows of power in development assistance. Findings call for the need to involve beneficiaries in development interventions from its very conception.
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| 24. |
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| 25. |
- Onyango, George Mark, et al.
(author)
-
Co-production of urban knowledge: Context approach for effective and efficient governance of cities
- 2021
-
In: Acta Scientiarum Polonorum Administratio Locorum. - : Uniwersytet Warminsko-Mazurski. - 1644-0749 .- 2450-0771. ; 20:1, s. 19-33
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Effective and efficient governance is driven by policies that prevail in urban contexts. Policies are usually the result of knowledge co-production, but the efficacy of the process of translating knowledge into policy is still not well defined in the Kenyan context. One example of this is the city of Kisumu, which has been the focus of knowledge co-production by researchers from Kisumu and Gothenburg, and when there is active involvement of academics, policymakers and the private sector. The creation of networks and platforms has been instrumental in knowledge production and has allowed for multi-level co-production facilitating the governance of the city at different spatial and administrative levels. Understanding of the different contexts that have been key in the knowledge production, in turn, is important for the process of determining how these have been the drivers of urban knowledge for governance in Kisumu.
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| 26. |
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| 27. |
- Valencia, Sandra, 1981, et al.
(author)
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Adapting the Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda to the city level : Initial reflections from a comparative research project
- 2019
-
In: International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development. - : Taylor & Francis. - 1946-3138 .- 1946-3146. ; 11:1, s. 4-23
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda recognise the role of cities in achieving sustainable development. However, these agendas were agreed and signed by national governments and thus implementing them at the local level requires a process of adaptation or localisation. In this paper, we analyse five aspects that practitioners and researchers need to consider when localising them: (1) delimitation of the urban boundary; (2) integrated governance; (3) actors; (4) synergies and trade-offs and (5) indicators. These considerations are interrelated, and while not exhaustive, provide an important initial step for reflection on the challenges and opportunities of working with these global agendas at the local level. The paper draws on the inception phase of an international comparative transdisciplinary research project in seven cities on four continents: Buenos Aires (Argentina), Cape Town (South Africa), Gothenburg (Sweden), Kisumu (Kenya), Malmo (Sweden), Sheffield (UK) and Shimla (India).
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| 28. |
- Valencia, Sandra, 1981, et al.
(author)
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Urban Climate Resilience and Its Link to Global Sustainability Agendas
- 2022
-
In: The Palgrave Handbook of Climate Resilient Societies: Volumes 1-2. - Cham : Springer International Publishing. ; 2, s. 1807-1834
-
Book chapter (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This chapter examines urban climate resilience. It provides a conceptual introduction, followed by an explanation of how urban areas have been recognized in recent global agendas related to sustainability, climate change, and disaster risk reduction. The chapter provides a picture of the complexity and diversity of urban climate resilience experiences, through seven case study cities on four continents. The sample of cities includes small, medium, and larger cities, both coastal and landlocked, in diverse political, socioeconomic, and geographical contexts. Drawing on comparative research using co-production between academic researchers and local authority counterparts, the detailed case studies illustrate the climate resilience challenges faced by each city, the work in terms of strategies and initiatives they have carried out and are planning to increase their resilience, as well as the geographical and policy contexts in which those strategies are embedded.
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| 29. |
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| 30. |
- Zapata Campos, María José, 1972, et al.
(author)
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Governing grassroots infrastructure – Resident associations and infrastructure provisioning in informal settlements
- 2018
-
In: www.laemos2018.net.
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Disruptions in critical infrastructures are part of everyday life for the millions of citizens living in informal settlements, as they constantly have to improvise, create routines, competences, relations and new knowledge to cope with these disturbances. Yet, residents in informal settlements around the world do not remain passive regarding the deteriorating socio-environmental conditions within their neighbourhoods. In the absence of formal infrastructures and services, grassroots resilience initiatives (such as resident associations, women associations, youth groups, self-help groups, community-based organisations, cooperatives, public-private partnerships) articulate the necessary resources, relations and rationales to create and reproduce critical infrastructures (e.g. delivering access to money, water or food) and to construct more inclusive forms of urban governance. Acknowledging the central rol of infrastructures for an inclusive urban development, the social science literature (mostly geography, urban studies or anthropology) has experienced in recent years, what has been called as the ‘infrastructure’ turn (Graham, 2010). Breaking up with traditional views that infrastructures are apolitical and thus not worthy of attention (MacFarlane and Rutherford, 2008; Coutard, 1999), these scholars approach the study of infrastructures as much more than being mere technological and material issues; they also embody social interests and values (Star, 1999) and therefore become politicized assemblages of artefacts and practices (Graham, 2010). Previous research has argued that it is possible to understand the politics of infrastructure and its implications through the study of infrastructure disruptions (Graham, 2010) or institutionalized informality, for example in informal settlements in Global South cities (MacFarlane, 2008, 2011, Trovalla and Trovalla, 2015, Zapata Campos and Zapata, 2013) “in ways that are rarely possible when such systems are functioning normally” (Graham, 2010, p.3). Whilst critical studies on infrastructure networks have often focused on the holistic macro dimension of the networks, the practices enacted in more localized parts of the infrastructure network, and the way they localize meaning, seems to be understudied (Chelcea and Pulay, 2015). The present study intends to contribute to this understanding of the political character of infrastructure, but it shifts the attention towards two aspects less discussed in the literature. First, a redefinition of infrastructures as practice based (Anand 2012) and situational (Chelcea, 2016), which therefore makes it necessary to study everyday infrastructuring practices at the user level. Second, a focus on the role of grassroots organisations in creating and governing these infrastructures in informal settlements. The paper originally brings together organisation studies (e.g. the concepts of partial organisation and institutional infrastructure), and the study of infrastructures in urban studies. It aims first, to examine the role of grassroots organisations in the production and governance of critical infrastructure in the context of uncertainty and scarcity of Global South cities’ informal settlements; and second, to explore the political implications of grassroot infrastructures by examining how they lead to efforts to create governmental structures to maintain them, to connect them to formal systems, and to bring in new infrastructures and services to the informal settlements. Empirically the paper is informed by the case of three grassroots organisations in three informal settlements in Kisumu, Kenya. The case study includes document studies, ethnographical and participatory observations, shadowing, visual ethnography, interviews, focus group interviews, social media, and stakeholder workshops between 2014 and 2018. Particularly the paper focuses on semi-structured interviews carried out with grassroot initiatives, politicians and public officers. The preliminary analysis of the data shows how the management and governance of critical infrastructure is characterized by four features: a) flexibly configured organisational landscapes versus formal façades; b) critical but hidden material/organisational infrastructure sustaining human and organisational life; c) nested versus floating infrastructure; and d) dormant (discretionary) but visible infrastructure.
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| 31. |
- Zapata Campos, María José, 1972, et al.
(author)
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Grassroots innovations in 'extreme' urban environments. The inclusive recycling movement
- 2023
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In: Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space. - : SAGE Publications. - 2399-6544 .- 2399-6552. ; 41:2, s. 351-374
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Waste pickers all over the world work innovatively to reduce the environmental footprint of cities as they struggle to meet their critical livelihood obligations. Informed by the case of waste picker organizations (WPOs) this article examines how grassroots initiatives and extreme-niche innovations are created and sustained by mobilizing resources, rationales and relations. The study is informed by a cross-national survey and in-depth interviews with WPOs in Argentina, Brazil, Nicaragua, Kenya and Tanzania, and builds upon theories of grassroots innovation movements. The findings show how operating in contexts of extreme scarcity, these grassroots organisations tap into local resources, e.g. tacit knowledge, economies of affection and other socially embedded institutional resources. Blending material and environmental rationales, contributes to expanding their audiences and to gaining further support. In such deprived urban contexts, radical and cumulative crises and events hindering residents’ livelihoods can paradoxically also spark ingenuity out of necessity, and the transformation of these settings into extreme niches of innovation. Finally, the mobilization of relations through the formation of networks linking WPOs with supportive intermediaries and global circuits of solidarity becomes another fundamental resilience strategy by which WPOs can navigate contested environments and insert their extreme-niche innovations in governmental structures. By simultaneously adopting a broad repertoire of strategies of insertion, contention, and mobilization WPO and their innovations thrive in highly constrained environments. We conclude with reflecting on how ‘extreme’ niches of innovation − at the cracks of the formal city, economy and waste systems − can unleash the creative power of stigmatized, illiterate and neglected grassroots to experiment with new solutions in resource-poor environments.
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| 32. |
- Zapata Campos, María José, 1972, et al.
(author)
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Inclusive recycling movements: a green deep democracy from below
- 2020
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In: Environment and Urbanization. - : SAGE Publications. - 0956-2478 .- 1746-0301. ; In Press
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)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.
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| 33. |
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| 34. |
- Zapata Campos, María José, 1972, et al.
(author)
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Organising grassroots infrastructure: The (in)visible work of organisational (in)completeness
- 2023
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In: Urban Studies. - : SAGE Publications. - 0042-0980 .- 1360-063X. ; 60:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)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.
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| 35. |
- Zapata Campos, María José, 1972, et al.
(author)
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Organising grassroots initiatives for a more inclusive governance: constructing the city from below
- 2019
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Reports (other academic/artistic)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.
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| 36. |
- Zapata Campos, María José, 1972, et al.
(author)
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Residents' collective strategies of resistance in Global South cities' informal settlements: Space, scale and knowledge
- 2022
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In: Cities. - : Elsevier BV. - 0264-2751. ; 125
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)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.
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| 37. |
- Zapata Campos, María José, 1972, et al.
(author)
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Urban qualities and residents’ strategies in compact global south cities: the case of Havana
- 2022
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In: Journal of Housing and the Built Environment. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1573-7772 .- 1566-4910. ; 37:1, s. 529-551
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Research and policy argue for more compact cities to respond to sustainable development challenges. However, what actually needs to be made more compact and how, is under examined, particularly in global South cities where north notions of urban qualities are adopted without being questioned. Informed by a qualitative study in informal and compact neighborhoods in Havana, this paper explores which qualities are important to deliver more just cities, and what strategies are developed by residents to strengthen beneficial qualities and address detrimental qualities in contexts of informal urbanization and compactness. It shows how the street, human capital, neighborhood, housing affordability, citizenship and vibrancy are significant compact city qualities neglected in the literature. Finally, the paper shows how diverse strategies are developed by residents to draw upon these qualities, such as self-help urbanism, learning and innovation, economic entrepreneurship, networks of solidarity, economies of reciprocity, local imaginaries and active citizenship.
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| 38. |
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| 39. |
- Zapata, Patrik, 1967, et al.
(author)
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Translating city development projects in informal settlements: reframing, anchoring and muddling through
- 2015
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In: 16th NAERUS Conference 20th November 2015, Dortmund, Germany.
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Numerous programs have been launched to deal with the serious solid waste predicaments in informal settlements. However, in both policy and research, there is an increasing concern with the disparities that exist between solid waste policies and what they actually achieve in practice. Informed by the case of the city of Kisumu and its Kisumu Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan (KISWAMP), this paper examines how municipal waste management programs are translated into practice in informal settlements. It is based on action-research carried out by a multidisciplinary and transdiciplinary group of researchers, through focus groups, participatory workshops, collaborative action, in-depth interviews, document analysis and observations. City management literature and the concepts of reframing, anchoring and muddling through are used to understand the KISWAMP and its implementation. It starts by reconstructing the history of KISWAMP and how it became a project. Then, it examines what original aspects of KISWAMP were actually translated, i.e. which ones faded out and which ones became stabilized into and travel as best practices to other locations. The analysis shows how KISWAMP was translated into practice by reframing the meanings and status of waste as a profession, as a policy and as a critical service worthy to pay for among residents. KISWAMP also thrived to anchor the program into existing waste entrepreneurship practices . Municipal officers and politicians were also trained to connect the plan within the municipality, yet as many moved, KISWAMP remained weakly bounded to city budgets and decision-making processes. Trust also grew among residents being served by the new waste collection services. Yet in lower-income settlements with insufficient assets to anchor the project, distrust and resentment grew instead. Skips in the new waste transfer points soon disappeared and were not regularly evacuated. Still, the skip idea did not totally vanish as it was recovered by the new KUP program. A final aspect in the implementation of KISWAMP was the ability of waste entrepreneurs and officers to develop ways to muddle through arbitrary and loosely coupled partnership arrangements to evacuate transfer points; waste pickers’ coping strategies to compensate low paid labour;; or residents’ persistent illegal disposal of waste where the skip used to be.
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| 40. |
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