CENTRE for LATIN AMERICAN
RESEARCH and DOCUMENTATION

This research project seeks to better understand the social dynamics that occur in self-built neighbourhoods that receive a large migrant population. The project has two case studies: Moravia in Medellín, Colombia and La Carpio in San José, Costa Rica. 

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First, we want to investigate the integration of new migrants in these neighbourhoods through the eyes of the migrants themselves with a photography project. How do they see the social fabric of the neighbourhood where they want to stay? And how do they adapt to be part of this fabric or survive without adapting? We also want to investigate how the established social fabric of these vulnerable, self-built neighbourhoods – based on mutual aid and community work - can be changed by the arrival of new cultural aspects from the countries of origin of new migrants who settle there. 

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The theoretical approach of the research deals with border landscapes within the urban environment. This means that on the one hand we will investigate new spatial and social borders and (symbolic) boundaries that are constructed by the arrival of new migrants, on the other hand we are interested in where these borders and boundaries are broken down in order to construct new spaces of coexistence and convergence. The neighbourhoods included in the project are self-built neighbourhoods in which the population relies heavily on self-management to get by.