Something interesting is rising

“Something interesting is rising”
The Collectivities and Citizenships of Young Adults in a Peripheral District of Lima, Peru

by Anna Plyushteva

The image we hold of the young person living in a deprived urban area is often a sweeping one: a powerless victim of discrimination; a powerful gang member; a big talent in an unfortunate place; a rags-to-riches success story. However, as cities are now home to over half of the world’s population, they are becoming larger, younger and increasingly segregated, and the need to truly get to know the next generation of urban dwellers is increasingly pressing.
So-called urban “slums” have gained growing attention from social scientists, urban planners and policy makers worldwide, because of the range and intensity of deprivations concentrated in them, and the sheer number of people who find themselves living in these “informal” urban areas. For the region of Latin America and the Caribbean, where this research project took place, UN-HABITAT found in 2005 that 27% of all urban residents lived in “slums”
This study is based on three months of fieldwork in Pampas de San Juan, a peripheral area of Lima, Peru’s ever-changing and bewildering capital city. The study represents an attempt to get to know the young people growing up in one “disadvantaged” urban area, through exploring their opinions, priorities and actions as members of Peruvian society. The study is motivated by a goal to understand how conditions of deprivation and spatial and social segregation are conceptualised by those who are alleged to be living in them – and what do such conceptualisation imply for the study of social policy, development and urban living. The aim is to move away from familiar generalisations about urban youth from low-income areas, such as those about their political apathy, worship of branded goods and international pop music, criminality, and denial of anything that preceded them.

something interesting is rising.pdf