Recount! The Social Life of the Peruvian Census

Skrabut, Kristin

doi:10.1111/j.1556-3502.2010.51513.x

Cited by 1 publication

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“…The fact that Viola returned from her trip to be recorded on the survey as head of her own household did not surprise me. Prior to my stint shadowing ENAHO surveyors, I had spent approximately twenty‐one months conducting fieldwork in Pachacútec, a shantytown in Lima's northwestern periphery, and had often witnessed Pachacutanos moving strategically in response to official counts, convinced that retaining land rights in this context required appearing as a resident on as many documents as possible (Skrabut ). What was special about Viola's case was how clearly it illustrated the clash between normative understandings of how shantytown homes should be used—as immediate residences for impoverished and growing families—and the ways people used them in practice to pursue particular domestic ideals while also trying to hedge their bets and cope with relational uncertainty.…”

Section: Introduction: Housing Poverty and Progressmentioning

confidence: 99%

Housing the Contingent Life Course: Domestic Aspiration and Extreme Poverty in Peruvian Shantytowns

Skrabut

2018

City & Society

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Peru's urban peripheries have long been shaped by the intertwining of urban development policies with Peruvians' domestic aspirations. Since the 1960s, different formulations of progressive and self‐help housing policies have relied on and reproduced a domestic life course model in which Peruvians' inexorable progress through the “domestic cycle” is mirrored in the steady transformation of their precarious, unconsolidated shantytown homes into “noble” (modern; concrete) constructions in fully urbanized neighborhoods. While shantytowns partially reflect this predictable life course temporality, they are also shaped by future imaginings and contingent time. People use shantytowns to fulfill ideals of adulthood, autonomy, and success, but also to hedge their bets, retreating from some relations while striving to forge new ones. Drawing on twenty‐one months of fieldwork in Peruvian shantytowns, this article examines informal urban development from a contingent life course perspective to demonstrate how Peru's urban peripheries are embedded in and shaped by Peruvians' efforts to pursue domestic life projects while managing fluctuating kin relations and preparing for uncertain futures.

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Section: Introduction: Housing Poverty and Progressmentioning

confidence: 99%