Informal settlements are commonly regarded as a problem; such a condition stems from their association with poverty, irregularity and marginalization. Despite years of research proving the opposite, policies and academic discourses still highlight the division between “formal” and ”informal” cities, which often excludes informal settlements from “normal” urban considerations. This paper argues that discursive construction increases the marginalized condition of informal settlements, thus affecting their residents. Through the use of a “place-making” approach, we explore the construction of a place according to discursive, spatial, social, cultural and political elements in order to destabilize some of the assumptions underlying the discourses on marginalization. This research was carried out using a qualitative methodology in two lowincome settlements located in Xalapa, Mexico. Results show that local discourses reveal complex and ambivalent opinions about working-class settlements, thereby reproducing and affecting the binary categorization of “informality”. However, it is the focus on the residents own place-making activities that determines the possibility of rethinking informal settlements.
Author Biography
Melanie Lombard, University of Manchester
PhD, University of Sheffield. Lecturer in Global Urbanism, Global Urban Research Center, School of Education, Environment, and Development, University of Manchester.
Lombard, M. (2015). Place -making and construction of informal settlements in Mexico. Revista INVI, 30(83), 117–146. Retrieved from https://revistainvi.uchile.cl/index.php/INVI/article/view/62649
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