Eric Prieto

What is a Slum (and what is it good for)?

There is a long-standing debate in urban studies over the significance of the explosive growth of impoverished settlements around the world since World War II. That still unresolved debate oscillates between two extremes, represented here by Mike Davis, who see slums as places of despair, social death, and capitalist victimization, and Jennifer Robinson, who rejects the term slum and sees informal settlements as adaptive responses to the challenges of rapid urbanization and viable platforms for upward mobility. My presentation recognizes the elements of truth in both accounts while also suggesting strategies for overcoming their perceived incompatibility. The goal is to find ways to bring together these apparently opposed schools of thought in order to better support the struggle against urban poverty.

After reviewing some of the most influential approaches to the field of urban informality, I turn to an examination of two literary accounts from Argentina that can help us to think through these debates with greater clarity: César Aira’s 2001 novella La Villa (The Shantytown) and Gabriela Cabezón Cámara’s 2009 novel La Virgen Cabeza (Slum Virgin). The former illustrates the underacknowledged extent to which its titular shantytown is integrated into the life of Buenos Aires, including the city’s elites, while the second examines the aftermath of the destruction of a slum, understood as the destruction of a vibrant social community, which is perceived as threatening by government officials precisely because it threatens the city’s current, unjust, social order. What both of these novels have in common is a desire to get readers to rethink what a slum is and how it contributes to the life of the city as a whole, while also giving us glimpses of the internal dynamics of such places. It is these aspects that I emphasize in my paper.