Fractured cities, second-class citizenship and urban violence

The paper argues that understanding the ways in which criminals interact with state and non-state actors is crucial to construct a more accurate picture of how local governance arrangements are unfolding in urban policy-making in Latin America. Based on the experience of Medellin, Colombia, it is discussed that alongside decades of violence, rapid urbanisation and economic liberal reforms, the local state has built capacity for service provision and new governance arrangements. But this capacity has not weakened criminal actors’ operations and interactions with society and state actors. By focusing on the neighbourhood level, the paper demonstrates the existence of different strategies that have allowed criminals to benefit from governance arrangements, originally created to promote participatory democracy and urban development. The paper calls for studies to incorporate the role of criminals in contexts where boundaries between illegal and legal spheres of action, and formal and informal arrangements are continuously blurred.

Section: The Configuration Of Local Governance In Latin Americamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Configuration Of Local Governance In Latin Americamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Governance and Criminal Actorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The role of criminal actors in local governance

Abello-Colak

Guarneros‐Meza

2014

“…However, since the early period of rapid urbanisation it has become apparent that not everyone benefits from what the city has to offer. Increased mobility both within and across national borders poses opportunities but also additional challenges to achieving equal rights to the city (Harvey, 2008; Koonings and Kruijt, 2007). Nowhere can this be more evident than in informal settlements, which have ceased to be a phase in urban development and became permanent features of cities in the global south (Datta, 2012a; McFarlane, 2008; Roy, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transnational migration and urban informality: Ethnicity in Buenos Aires’ informal settlements

Bastia

2014

Ethnicity is playing an increasingly important role in the ways in which informality is governed and regulated across cities in the global south. This raises concerns regarding the ensuing exclusion experienced by some groups of people living in informal settlements. In this paper I use the example of Buenos Aires, Argentina, to explore the extent to which ethnicity plays a role in the informal settlement. There is significant evidence that Argentina has gone through a process of de-ethnicisation, particularly at the national level. However, it is unclear whether this process is also evident at the level of the informal settlement. Drawing on a range of interviews, the paper finds that while grassroots organisations are de-ethnicising, the formal leadership of the informal settlement and to some extent also migrants reproduce ethnic divisions. The de-ethnicisation led by the state has therefore unequally percolated to the micro level.

“…The reform also saw a shift to a decentralised, municipal ownership structure. The decentralisation of water provision parallelled the nation’s devolution of power to its regions and took place against a political backdrop that had for a long time maintained the co-existence of an authoritarian centre and a populist brand of participation (Schady, 2000; Hordijk, 2005; Koonings and Kruijt, 2007). Although this may have promoted the direct participation of beneficiaries in their own services (Reuben, 2006), it overlaid a history of central government interference in urban social movements and cultivated an adversarial relationship between community organisations and entrenched political interests in the regions (Flindell Klaren, 2000).…”

Section: Water Sector Reform In Perumentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysing the Relationship between Urban Livelihoods and Water Infrastructure in Three Settlements in Cusco, Peru

Crawford¹,

Bell²

2011

This paper explores the role played by water infrastructure in urban livelihoods. It is based on a study of three settlements in Cusco, Peru, and shows that different modes of organising infrastructure co-exist within the same city, despite national policy prescriptions for urban water provision. Further, unequal access of households to these services exists within the same settlements and amplifies household vulnerability which, in turn, feeds back to undermine local, autonomous governance of water. This paper draws on the work of van Vliet et al. and Marvin and Graham to develop a framework that considers infrastructure organisation alongside household livelihoods in order to analyse the features of governance and vulnerability that affect urban livelihoods by privileging some groups and bypassing others.