Security, Resilience and Participatory Urban Upgrading in Latin America and the Caribbean

Abstract

In theory, security and resilience in contexts of violence and crime are improved by participatory urban upgrading. Yet, upgrading practices actually demonstrate how vulnerabilities to violence, insecurity and crime are reproduced by state–society and intra‐community power hierarchies. On the one hand, the priorities and perspectives of politicians and bureaucrats continue to take precedence over the needs and demands of residents of marginalized communities, undermining participation. On the other hand, the internal socio‐political structures of marginalized communities complicate the capacity and willingness of residents and external state actors to engage with each other. The result is that upgrading programmes are not particularly successful in ordering development and security or in creating resilience. Internal processes have a greater impact on residents’ choices in their daily struggles to survive and thrive, but the resilience they create is limited because power and resources tend to be centralized and sometimes linked to crime groups. This article uses the cases of Kingston (Jamaica) and São Paulo (Brazil) to highlight these power hierarchies and how they impede the resilience project of participatory urban upgrading processes in contexts of crime and violence.

The Pandemic and Organized Crime in Urban Latin America: New Sovereignty Arrangements or Business as Usual?

“…Such patterns emerged because urban authorities routinely failed to address the basic needs of the most vulnerable, leading to limited citizenship rights and high degrees of violence (Koonings & Kruijt 2009;Penglase 2014). As illicit non-state actors stepped in to fill the servicing gaps produced by state neglect (Davis 2016;Hilgers 2020;Penglase 2005;Willis 2015), they provided what some have called a parallel form of governance (Leeds 1996) that on occasion operated with tacit approval if not active state participation (Arias 2017;Davis 2009). Whether operating alone or as embedded in existent governing structures, these illicit actors built their power around internal hierarchies and exacting codes of conduct to provide order and security in the face of state neglect.…”

Challenges of Improving Livelihoods by Slum Upgrading A Sociotechnical Transitions Perspective

“…For example, in individual instances, market logics often conflict (Casciarri, 2009) or coexist (Venkataraman et al, 2016) with community logics, and professional and hierarchal logics may conflict with community logics (Currie & Guah, 2007;Watson, 2003). In addition politicians (state logic) also influence upgrading processes (Hilgers, 2020;Muchadenyika & Waiswa, 2018).…”