Slum Studies Research Group

This is a group that intends to study the world historical significance of slums, favelas, and shanty-towns. The ultimate goal of the group would to produce publishable works which can be submitted as an edited volume. The project (which I informally refer to as 'Slum Studies') seeks to take the slum or favela seriously as a world historical (developmental) form. This is an analysis that can have both quantitative as well as qualitative elements. 

There are tremendous amounts of data currently available from organizations like UN-HABITAT, and Global Urban Observatory (to name only two) that measure the growth of slums and favelas as well as the global movement of populations from traditional rural areas to cities in the developing and developed world. I believe the areas that are deserving of more extensive study include basic questions involving the historical persistence of slums and favelas, and what this might say about the way inequality functions in the Capitalist World Economy. What are the social, political, and economic forces that make slums and favelas possible given the potential for economic prosperity argued to be associated with globalization? Are slums and favelas inevitable outcomes given the still rather limited nature of capital flows in the global economy? I also believe that the intra-national consequences related to the continued growth in slums and favelas in developing regions should be explored. Just as important as how slum-dwellers live is the issue of how they are treated by municipal and national governments. Identity issues (related to race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality) are also very important components of this projects Issues of social and political exclusion can go hand-in-hand with spiraling criminal activity and policed violence in these peripheralized areas.