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Against a backdrop of rapid urbanization and the growth of a global economy powered by carbon, Rebecca Jarman argues that in Venezuela, urban poverty has become one of the most important resources in national culture and statecraft. Attracting the attentions of writers, artists, filmmakers, and musicians from within and beyond the limits of Caracas, the barrios are fetishized in the cultural domain as sites of rampant sex, crime, revolution, disease, and violence. The appeal of the urban poor in entertainment is replicated in the policies of autocratic leaders who, operating within an extractivist matrix that prizes the acquisition of land and capital, have sought to expand their reach into ...
Urban-Think Tank (U-TT) ist eine interdisziplinäre Designagentur, die aus der politisch instabilen Lage Caracas’ zu Zeiten der Chávez-Ära hervorging und seit gut 20 Jahren Projekte in Lateinamerika, Europa und Afrika verwirklicht. Durch seine vielschichtige Arbeit nahm das Unternehmen Ende der 1990er-Jahre die Vorreiterrolle einer sozialen Wende in der Architektur ein; mit stadtplanerischen Interventionen, die den sozialen Zusammenhalt in den Metropolen auf der südlichen Halbkugel und in den wachsenden Städten Europas stärkten. Zudem produzierte U-TT zahlreiche Medienprojekte, die Film, Theater, Ausstellungen und Druckarbeiten für sich nutzen, um neue diskursive Räume zu schaffen und die Frage aufzuwerfen, wie und für wen unsere Städte entwickelt sind. Die wohl bekannteste Arbeit entstand über das Torre-de-David-Hochhaus, die auf der Architekturbiennale von Venedig 2012 mit dem Goldenen Löwen ausgezeichnet wurde. Dieses Buch blickt jedoch nicht nur zurück, sondern auch nach vorn, ersinnt neue Räume für eine hyper-urbanisierte Welt und ermöglicht Einblicke in informelle Siedlungen, räumliche Spielflächen und künstlerische Interventionen im öffentlichen Raum.
Since being elected president in 1998, Hugo Chávez has become the face of contemporary Venezuela and, more broadly, anticapitalist revolution. George Ciccariello-Maher contends that this focus on Chávez has obscured the inner dynamics and historical development of the country’s Bolivarian Revolution. In We Created Chávez, by examining social movements and revolutionary groups active before and during the Chávez era, Ciccariello-Maher provides a broader, more nuanced account of Chávez’s rise to power and the years of activism that preceded it. Based on interviews with grassroots organizers, former guerrillas, members of neighborhood militias, and government officials, Ciccariello-Mah...
In this vivid ethnography of social movements in the barrios, or poor shantytowns, of Caracas, Sujatha Fernandes reveals a significant dimension of political life in Venezuela since President Hugo Chávez was elected. Fernandes traces the histories of the barrios, from the guerrilla insurgency, movements against displacement, and cultural resistance of the 1960s and 1970s, through the debt crisis of the early 1980s and the neoliberal reforms that followed, to the Chávez period. She weaves barrio residents’ life stories into her account of movements for social and economic justice. Who Can Stop the Drums? demonstrates that the transformations under way in Venezuela are shaped by negotiatio...
This book focuses on the implementation of slum upgrading projects and the last generation of citywide programmes that define the future urban configuration of informal settlements, from a citywide perspective, in the Earth’s tropical region. The book presents a study on regeneration experiences in Asia and Latin America and it identifies important points of connection and similarities between the two cases, while also determining that, compared to Asia, informality in Latin America is in its ‘second generation.’
This is the first book to address future informal settlements at the global scale. It argues that to foster favourable conditions for the sustainable evolution of future informal cities, planners must consider the same issues that are paramount in formal urban developments, such as provision of: balanced land uses energy efficiency and mobility water management and food sufficiency governance and community participation productivity and competitiveness identity and sense of place Planning and Design for Future Informal Settlements makes a call for responsible action to address the urban challenges of the developing world, suggesting that the vitality of informality, coupled with spatial desi...
Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, working from home became a global phenomenon, yet before 2020, it was a relatively understudied practice. But in informal settlements, the definition of "home" and "employment" is completely intertwined, which is why there is so much to learn from them. For over half a century, mainstream theoretical approaches to urban informality, dominated by development economics, often fail to see this economic and spatial phenomenon jointly. Labor studies tend to be space-blind and spatial studies often disregard informal employment. Profoundly interdisciplinary, this work connects scholarship in development, public policy, labor studies, and feminist ec...
Beginning with volume 41 (1979), the University of Texas Press became the publisher of the Handbook of Latin American Studies, the most comprehensive annual bibliography in the field. Compiled by the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress and annotated by a corps of more than 130 specialists in various disciplines, the Handbook alternates from year to year between social sciences and humanities. The Handbook annotates works on Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and the Guianas, Spanish South America, and Brazil, as well as materials covering Latin America as a whole. Most of the subsections are preceded by introductory essays that serve as biannual evaluations of the literature and research under way in specialized areas. The Handbook of Latin American Studies is the oldest continuing reference work in the field. Katherine D. McCann is acting editor for this volume. The subject categories for Volume 57 are as follows: Electronic Resources for the Social Sciences Anthropology Economics Geography Government and Politics International Relations Sociology
Architects, development practitioners and designers are working in a global environment and issues such as environmental and cultural sustainability matter more than ever. Past interactions and interventions between developed and developing countries have often been unequal and inappropriate. We now need to embrace fresh design practices based on respect for diversity and equality, participation and empowerment. This book explores what it means for development activists to practise architecture on a global scale, and provides a blueprint for developing architectural practices based on reciprocal working methods. The content is based on real situations - through extended field research and contacts with architecture schools and architects, as well as participating NGOs. It demonstrates that the ability to produce appropriate and sustainable design is increasingly relevant, whether in the field of disaster relief, longer-term development or wider urban contexts, both in rich countries and poor countries.
Cities are home to 525 million poor people throughout the world. This study assesses the performance of 99 World Bank urban development operations completed since 1993, focusing on how these interventions have improved the living conditions of the urban poor. Findings include that the projects improved livability conditions significantly, including access to better basic water, sewerage and solid waste disposal. However, there is a need for more systematic monitoring and evaluation of the poverty alleviation results of such urban development assistance.