Beyond the Stigma of the Informal City

by Giulia Celentano, 28.03.2019
Mathare slum, Nairobi (photo credit: Giulia Celentano/ETH Zurich)

An inside eye into the resourceful slums of Nairobi and Bangkok

When I started my PhD at the Chair of Sustainable Construction, I was afraid that I would no longer have the chance to spend time in field, and that I’d be confined to office life in a shiny office at ETH, running calculations and drafting graphs in Excel.

Two years on, thanks to the open mindedness of my supervisor, I am happy to say this fear was unfounded.
A typical inner street of Mathare slum, Mabatini yard, Nairobi (photo credit: Giulia Celentano/ETH Zurich)
Every time I leave for fieldwork I am incredibly excited, enthusiastic and curious, knowing I’ll be immersed in challenging situations that the informal city, also known as “slum”, “favela” or “bindonville”, presents you with at every corner. I have the feeling my friends and colleagues picture me in the middle of sewage, hiding from gang members or trying to run away from a fire. Unfortunately, I cannot say their image of the informal city is entirely mistaken. But there is much more to it than extreme poverty and violence.

I am writing this piece from Cape Town, where I am working on my third case study. Far from simplifying or denigrating the intense conditions of the slums, I’d like to walk you through the ghettos of Nairobi and Bangkok with a different point of view, showing you a reality of resourcefulness, creativity and pride, often neglected in favor of a more appealing tale of complete hopelessness and drama.
The informal city, home to one sixth of the global population, is the result of a persistent housing gap, pushing the extreme urban poor to set foot on unsafe lands and build themselves a shelter there, soon mushrooming into a city lacking any basic services. From trash disposal to sanitation, the community mostly relies on itself and on the support of local or international NGOs.

As a result, community cleaning, informal recycling and solidarity constitute the backbone of a slum, and compensate hugely for the challenging physical, hygienic and criminal conditions that the informal city sets for its dwellers.
Informal trash sorting, Mathare slum Area 3, Nairobi (photo credit: Giulia Celentano/ETH Zurich)
The communities find unpredictable ways to make their system function efficiently. Nothing is wasted; everything is optimized, recycled and upcycled into useful elements and tools, or simply into features to customize one’s own home.

Where there is no space for a business, this is integrated into somebody else’s activity, providing unexpected combinations such as a corn mill with a backdoor entrance to a barber shop. , The other option is to simply put your business on wheels and to make it mobile, to increase the chances of reaching a maximum number of clients.
Self-built recycled ice crasher for frozen juice street vender, Klong Toei slum, Bangkok (photo credit: Giulia Celentano/ETH Zurich)
Tom and his self-built recycled timber inner cladding, Klong Toei slum, Bangkok (photo credit: Giulia Celentano/ETH Zurich)
Mobile cleaning tools shop, Klong Toei slum, Bangkok (photo credit: Giulia Celentano/ETH Zurich)
Creativity does not only respond to problem solving in this context of scarce resources.

It also emerges as intense customization, an expression of cultural identity and pride, spanning from spiritual celebration to visual art, tribal dances and music. Rituals, symbolism and ancestral culture are in fact intensively present in the informal streets.
Temple House, Klong Toei slum, Bangkok (photo credit: Giulia Celentano/ETH Zurich)
Black Magic Tattooed community member, Klong Toei slum, Bangkok (photo credit: Giulia Celentano/ETH Zurich)
Traditional dance performance to promote a new community sport initiative in Mathare slum, Mabatini yard, Nairobi (photo credit: Giulia Celentano/ETH Zurich)
With these images, I don’t want to shy away from an often difficult and tragic reality. Instead, I’d like to shift its common depiction away from the pure stigma associated with it, based on violence, poverty and drugs.

I wonder if a more integrated depiction of the informal city, that includes terms like “extremely poor, violent, dangerous” as much as “creative, resilient, resourceful”, would help reduce the perceived distance we have from it. This in turn may help us aspire to its improvement, and help planners and policymakers leverage local resources and community energy towards achieving a positive transformation.
The author with Kevin and Samson, community builders in Mathare slum, Mabatini yard, Nairobi (photo credit: Giulia Celentano/ETH Zurich)

About the author

Giulia Celentano is a trained architect from Politecnico di Milano, specialized in sustainable building solutions with natural materials, specifically on earthen construction. After taking some practical earth building courses, she joined Liveinslums NGO operating architectural interventions on field in informal settlements. After a few years of diverse collaborations abroad, she decided to look at informality from a research perspective, and she’s now a Phd Candidate at the Chair of Sustainable Construction at ETH Zurich, looking at the societal consequences of material choice in the informal cities of Bangkok, Nairobi and Cape Town.