Annual RC21 Conference 2011
The struggle to belong. Dealing with diversity in 21st century urban settings
Amsterdam (The Netherlands), July 7-9 2011
Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research – Urban Studies
University of Amsterdam – The Netherlands
29. Slums, Ghettoes, and the Internal Periphery of the Global Urban
From the ghettoes of Detroit, to the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, the banlieues of Paris and the slums of Mumbai, this session seeks to address the contemporary and historical significance of the urban periphery to the development of the global urban and the global system more generally. What has been informally dubbed ‘slum studies’ explores the implications of what is expected to be a tremendous growth in urban areas around the world over the next 30 years, most of which will occur in the global South. Growth in metropolitan areas will lead to growth in the slums, favelas, and shanties that form the urban periphery. Just as important is the significant reshaping of urban peripheral areas in the cities of the developing world as a consequence of the global financial crisis of 2008.
With these changes in the nature and structure of the urban periphery around the world comes the need for a greater understanding of the cost and benefits associated with the political, economic, and social integration of slum areas, as well as the potential developmental consequences for the global urban if further peripheralization becomes an integral component of growth in metropolitan areas. Slums, favelas, and shantytown could be future flash points for political and economic struggle in the developing world. They might serve as incubators for novel forms of more equitable urban development. Moreover, internal dynamics in existing ghettoes and poor neighborhoods in western countries are of great significance for the world economy, as the subprime crisis has shown.
This session seeks to bring together theoretical and empirical analyses of slums, ghettoes, favelas and shantytowns. One issue that papers might address are the various ways in which inequality becomes spatialized in the world economy. Also, given the rather limited nature of capital flows in the global economy, can we say that slums and favelas inevitable? This session also welcomes papers that foster an original theoretical and/or empirical understanding of social differentiation and identification in the ever-changing landscapes of slums and ghettoes.
Session Organizers:
Francois Bonnet, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Amsterdam
Email: bonnet@uva.nl
Delario Lindsey, Department of Africana World Studies, William Paterson University
Email: lindseyd1@wpunj.edu
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