A discussion of 'The Unequal World' in Duncan Green’s 'From Poverty to Power'
NOTE: Whilst I have never blogged before, and am still finding my voice and style, I’ve decided to just write about things that interest me and perhaps ‘the whole point’ will come soon after. Here is a discussion of Green’s first chapter, ‘The Unequal World’ in his book, From Poverty to Power as a future architect trying to find her place in the development world. P.S. I go off tangent and write far too much
Architecture can create and sustain power relationships
“Power reaches into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes and everyday life.” – Michael Foucault
Foucault’s study of the Panopticon illustrates how architecture can create and sustain power relationships. I suggest that perhaps it is not the just the architecture itself which does this, but the process of creating it and the process of spatial production. We as architects are often guilty of ego, authorship and integrity for the work we create. Architecture as a Critical Exercise: Little Pointers Towards Alternative Practices criticises the architect’s assumption that people are ‘passive subjects willing to conform their actions to the imagination of the architect…' The training and skills of an architect go far beyond that, we must constantly challenge our practice and accept that architecture is not just about buildings, it is space, its production and the power systems that are created and challenged.
Asset Focused Development
Green argues that good development practices should build on the assets of those in poverty rather than treating them as empty receptacles of charity. Millennium development goals and White Papers treat poverty as a problem to be solved. People living in informal settlements are already agents of change. They have designed and built their houses in areas of rapid change and undeniably scarce resource, proving their innovation and tactic of survival. Architect Alejandro Aravena of Elemental Spoke to the UN, saying that "We [must] use peoples' own capacity, ideas and resources to provide a better environment. The scarcest resource in cities today is not money, but coordination. So we need to create open systems that can include people’s own capacity to add value to their living conditions and opportunities.” As architects we must move away from the notion of creating solutions, and of closed design processes. We are not the experts in the production of space, and when we enter into the process of production we are creating hierarchies which affect how and what we design. How do we as architects participate in an open process that enables communities to build capacity, and to be active in the decision making processes of the environment and its design.
Dealing with Rapid Change
As Aravena said, the capacity, ideas and resources are there but the coordination isn’t. This is not just about the organisation of communities, but also coordination in governance and through the vertical systems. Design should be an open system, open to change, adaption, different users and designers. It should increase people’s capacity to add value to their living conditions, participate in decision processes and create opportunity for growth. As Architects, we should capitalise on existing assets and create catalysts for positive and sustainable future development. However, in order to do this, one must have a clear understanding of the context; from the dwelling to the global scale.
One third of the urban population live in slums and are vulnerable to disease, violence and social and political exclusion. UN habitat estimated that the world’s slum population will double in the next 30 years, outpacing the current level of resource available and the state’s capacity to deal with it. These cities are as Mehrotra describes in 'Rethinking the Informal', ‘kinetic’ and are not perceived through ‘Architecture’ but through spaces which hold associative values and support lives. Redefining our definition of ‘Architecture’ as not the static, object buildings but as assets and the production of spaces which contribute to peoples survival and livelihoods is imperative to understanding how to address such rapid rates of urbanisation that are deepening and cementing inequality in our cities.
Informality is not a space for the marginalised
We must move away from the notion that people who live in informal spaces are to be seen as ‘marginalised’. It perpetuates the view of them as being passive and also a homogeneous category. Informality is often seen as an exotic or illegal urban condition which exists in the global south because there is a ‘normal’ dominant order to which it does not conform to.
Henri Lefebvre, the French sociologist investigated the idea that space is the main structural element of social relations in The Survival of Capitalism: Reproduction of the Relations of Production. Unlike Marx, who believed that recession, unemployment and poverty are a part of the capitalist system, Lefebvre discusses how capitalism will not collapse, and renews itself generation after generation. It survives due to its capacity to produce space according to its own logic and accommodate any resistant niches (Architecture as a Critical Exercise).
Our education and our economic systems suggest that formalising and is the only way to integrate (or abolish) informality. De Soto’s mystery of capital is a good example of this however Alan Gilbert argues in De Soto’s The Mystery of Capital:reflections on the book’s public impact that his message fits well with neoliberal economic and political logic, ‘combining the ideals of market forces, sensible borrowing and individual initiative and the joys of ownership in a form that promises to bring economic growth for all. The message is that poor nations can prosper if they replicate the supposed historical experience of the United States in land settlement and the legalisation of real property.’ He argues that breaking cycles of poverty is much more complex and deeper than issuing pieces of paper that provide legitimacy within certain political systems.
It must be added that though the private sector, which is often loathed in talks regarding development, is still a key stakeholder. Green asserts that the private sector creates jobs, products, knowledge transfer and technology and contributes taxes to the state. It Drives economic growth which is vital to long term development. It must still be noted that over powerful corporations can undermine states (Bribery or innapropriate lobbying) citizenship (denying labour rights.
Active Citizenship
Active Citizenship is ‘The combination of rights and obligations that link individuals to the state, including paying taxes, obeying laws, and exercising the full range of political, civil and social rights. Active citizens use these rights to improve the quality of political or civic life, through involvement in the formal economy or formal politics, or through the sort of collective action that historically has allowed the poor and exclusive groups to make their voices heard.’ (Green)
The key to the assertion of these rights is through organisation. Active citizens and Effective states (also known as development states, states that can guarantee the guarantee the security and the rule of law and can design and implement effective strategy to ensure inclusive economic growth) are key to creating inclusive cities and alleviating inequality. DAG have an Active Citizens programme, which aims to train leaders at a neighbourhood level so that they can organise and better participate as a community in civic processes. DAG aims to capacitate communities rather than speak for them. 'People in poverty should have a voice in deciding their own destiny' as Green puts it, rather than to be treated as passive recipients of welfare and charity. People must be regarded as subjects, and participants of processes who actively demand their rights.
Participating in civic processes is a right of citizenship, and is vital in enabling change from the bottom up. Appadurai, explains in ‘Deep Democracy’ how many large cities show extreme inequality with regards to wealth, poverty and disenfranchisement. Movements among the urban poor, mobilise and mediate these contradictions representing efforts to reconstitute citizenship in cities. This bottom up mobilisation is what Appadurai refers to as ‘Deep Democracy’. Harvey says in ‘The Right to the City’ that 'the right to the city is therefore far more than the right of individual access to the resources that the city embodies: it is a right to change ourselves'. This theory can transcend into architecture. If the process is closed, then we as architects are asserting a way of living, a pattern of behaviour on a passive being. If the process and the design is open, then we are allowing people the right to change, to develop, to progress.
The disconnect between academia and the development sector
Crucible change is often seen on a national or local level. NGO’s focus on community level change, and perhaps on city level. However, after speaking to some NGO workers, there seems to be a real scepticism of researchers. They feel that researchers ‘mine’ for information, interviews and pictures from the poor yet contribute very little to the actual community. They often disappear after the paper is published and move on.
Yes, bad ethics practice can result in adverse effects on community, however I think that research can put this local level information into a broader, global context. Research can influence change on a global scale, it can lead to innovative solution backed by theory and challenge practice. The main argument I have come across is that the grassroots workers have been working with communities in field for decades, and therefore know their practice and their communities. However, I think researchers can provide a detached, Birdseye perspective and critically analyse practice in order to cultivate new methods, theories and change.
I do agree that academia is disjointed and in an almost colonial sense, takes treasure and claims it as its own. Spivak, talks about appropriating the voice of the subaltern and Babha talks of the immense power the translator holds. If there is such a thing as passive research which does not interact with what it is critical of, what is active research? How do we marry pragmatism with the practical work on ground? Is this where architecture and architectural research comes in? What am I contributing? Am I even a researcher? Truth is, I am an Architect. My role is not to simply observe, but I am a participant in a process. My practice is being defined and this critical discussion is vital to me establishing and challenging my practice in order to figure out my role in working towards alleviating global inequality through the production of space.