R: Re: [Slum Studies Research Group] Inclusive growth: merely desir... (guardian.co.uk)

[cec...@libero.it]

I want to participate in this discussion with something that may look like a provocation (but it is not!). sure, I think that what is happening in North Africa tells us something, but I do not think that is necessarily linked to the issue of slums (not only). I'm interested in, but look at the slums from a different perspective than that of injustice. For example, I'm interested in what we can learn from slums. recycling of materials, for example, seems interesting because it may have political significance in the broadest sense: it may indicate, for example, a different way of consuming, a different relationship with the goods ...

ciao

cecilia

p.s.: Do you know we have some gipsy slums in rome and this is leading political discourse (more and more)...

----Messaggio originale----
Da: LIND...@wpunj.edu
Data: 10/03/2011 20.11
A: <slum-s...@googlegroups.com>
Cc: <slum-s...@googlegroups.com>
Ogg: Re: [Slum Studies Research Group] Inclusive growth: merely desir... (guardian.co.uk)

Thank you for your response, Moussa.  My efforts to get the proverbial 'ball' rolling on the Slum Studies group is beginning to pay-off.  Please feel free to post and invite new members to participate in our discussion. 

Delario Lindsey, Ph.D.

Department of Africana-World Studies

Department of Liberal Studies

William Paterson University - New Jersey

On Mar 10, 2011, at 1:13 PM, "Moussa sow" <pn...@yahoo.com> wrote:

Thanks Delario for the article. This is an interesting awakening, --if those concerned are awake yet anyway-- So long as the rich think that they can enjoy a stared evening  on a yacht, turning their sight away from the slums made out of their postconsumed goods, frustration is likely to fester and upheavals with uncertain consequences as in Libya--and elsewhere--are likely to continue. Ethical concerns being muffled, I will say that necessity seems to impose itself in a violent way for it to prevail as North Africa has shown us.

my to two cents.

Moussa

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From: "Lindsey, Delario" <LIND...@wpunj.edu>
To: Slum Group <slum-s...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thu, March 10, 2011 5:40:45 PM
Subject: [Slum Studies Research Group] Inclusive growth: merely desir... (guardian.co.uk)

Inclusive growth: merely desirable or essential?
www.guardian.co.uk​/global-development​/poverty...

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Delario Lindsey, Ph.D.

Department of Africana-World Studies

Department of Liberal Studies

William Paterson University - New Jersey

[Moussa sow]

Indeed Slums have different reading grids and me connecting them to what is happening in Arabia might be a little bit of a stretch. However, depending of course on which part of Arabia we are talking about, Slums can be Bedouin tents on the shadows of the oil rich saoudi Arabian Modern tall buildings, tents that are usually seen as not attractive--while being the bedrock of arabian culture--as the prince  urban planner wants to bulldozer  them and replace them with subsidized concrete housing. Of course I am not a social scientist, therefore I do not have figures to add to make my point. However, my take here is that Slums have different meaning in different spaces and cultures in the age of urbanization. Most Slums present the face of what those who have entered modernity with full force seem to abhor given that  they often represent the chaotic and the transitional while the urban spaces are marked by order and enforced. In the conusmer aspect of things, consumerism is less of a choice than of a necessity in the Slums, just like the slums born out of necessity if consider the often "illegal" and precarious nature of it. I am not talking of the new wave of "ConsommAction" philosophy springing from the new Europe. The political nature of Slums dwells on the amorphous aspect of its architecture, the instaneous, the lack of planning, as contingency makes them happen. It is that framework --or lack ther off-- that makes them political as they pose a threat to policymakers and political authorities, since they are not framed, zoned and policed because of their often informal and underground identity.

More later...

Moussa 

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From: "cec...@libero.it" <cec...@libero.it>
To: slum-s...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thu, March 10, 2011 9:26:52 PM
Subject: R: Re: [Slum Studies Research Group] Inclusive growth: merely desir... (guardian.co.uk)

[Lindsey, Delario]

I see both (the obvious class/social inequality issues and Cecilia's point about slums as potential alternative urbanism) as quality of life issues. What good that may come from these  peripheralized spaces (read: slums, favelas, shantytowns) comes about despite self-serving governments, exploitative global capitalism, and (in many cases) the debilitating legacy of colonialism. I believe the tension in North Africa represents a turning tide that may see the historically deprived (in both the cities and the countryside) begin to demand their fair share.  As we forward, the alternative may be represented as much by those who supplant an hegemonic regime of waste (typically associated with the West, particularly the US), as by those who overthrow entrenched autocratic political regimes. 

Delario Lindsey, Ph.D.

Department of Africana-World Studies

Department of Liberal Studies

William Paterson University - New Jersey