Providing affordable and decent housing to the population is a fundamental responsibility of states around the globe. In practice, however, states often fail to meet the housing needs of the population, especially in the urban peripheries. How does this affect the relations between residents of the urban margins and the state? This question is the starting point of the anthropological ERC funded research project
‘Politics of the Periphery in Urban Latin America: Reconceptualising Politics from the Margins’ (POPULAR).
The
Sociology of Development and Change (SDC) Group welcomes applicants for the position of a postdoctoral researcher (3 years; 0.9 fte) in POPULAR. POPULAR is a comparative ethnographic research project led by
Dr Martijn Koster. It investigates the relationships between residents of low-income neighbourhoods and the state around issues of housing and urban development in three domains: governance, electoral politics, and activism. It compares three cities in Latin America where housing is an urgent issue: Medellín (Colombia), Santiago de Cuba (Cuba), and Recife (Brazil). The research is carried out by a team of 3 PhDs, 2 Postdocs and Dr Koster.
You will be based at Wageningen University, carry out two three-month periods of ethnographic fieldwork in Medellín, and conduct desk research. The focus of your research will be on the city’s housing regime: the configuration of actors, institutions, and resources through which housing is organized. It includes urban development programs, and other public(-private) interventions on housing shortages and tenure legalisation. The housing regime is also affected by electoral politics, and forms of activism. You will carry out interviews and participate in meetings with key figures in the housing regime, and activists, to study how they perceive of the low-income populations and the need for housing, and how they envision the role of the state.
You will closely collaborate with the PhD researcher who focuses on the residents of Medellín’s low-income neighbourhoods.
You will contribute to the synthesis of the work packages. You will identify and analyse the similarities and differences between the different housing regimes and the associated resident-state relationships. You will visit at least one of the other two research sites.
POPULAR aims at conceptualizing the resident-state relationship beyond the prevalent frameworks of citizenship, resistance, and informal politics. With the PI, you will contribute to advancing current debates on politics in the margins, decoloniality, postcolonial studies, and other literature that helps to decenter and pluralize our understanding of politics, and contribute to a fairer city.
You will work here You will be part of the POPULAR research team, led by the PI
Dr Martijn Koster. This team is embedded in the Chairgroup of
Sociology of Development and Change led by Prof. Bram Büscher, and the
Section Space, Place and Society.
Dr Elisabet Rasch is part of the recruitment committee.
Start date The preferred start date is 1 October 2024.