According to UN Habitat, nearly 80% of Addis Ababa’s inner city consists of slums – a figure that has rapidly been changing due to the Integrated Housing Development Programme (IHDP): a government...Show moreAccording to UN Habitat, nearly 80% of Addis Ababa’s inner city consists of slums – a figure that has rapidly been changing due to the Integrated Housing Development Programme (IHDP): a government-led programme launched between 2005 and 2017 to redevelop inner-city slum areas and subsequently rehouse low- and middle-income residents in peripherally located, subsidised condominium flats. In clearing inner-city land, the IHDP has prompted large-scale displacement of communities and paved way for private sector-led redevelopment. Meanwhile, the relocation to condominiums has been challenging for former slum dwellers as they have had to undergo drastic spatial and lifestyle changes. Such urban transitions have raised questions about the ‘selling out’ of existing communities and who Addis Ababa’s redevelopment is for. Through a discourse analysis, this thesis critically examines how governmental bodies have framed and implemented the IHDP in comparison to the experiences of local populations. Specifically, legal documents informing processes of slum clearance and resettlement to condominiums have been studied within a conceptual framework derived from Scott and Harvey, among other scholars, against the accounts of affected residents. From this study, it becomes clear that the IHDP has been applied in a top-down manner, making a radical departure from local needs and traditions, and furthering the government’s interests of creating a modern and globally competitive city. The thesis concludes that the ‘metis’ found and practiced in disappearing slum settlements needs to be incorporated in the city’s redevelopment plans to reinvent what constitutes a ‘new’, but social and spatially just, Addis Ababa.Show less
Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
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The thesis is based on empirical fieldwork that investigated a disaster-induced relocation project in eastern Indonesia. Choosing an actor-focused approach that followed development brokers of a...Show moreThe thesis is based on empirical fieldwork that investigated a disaster-induced relocation project in eastern Indonesia. Choosing an actor-focused approach that followed development brokers of a Christian NGO in the course of the project, enabled the author to expose multiple conflicting interests and agendas between and within government, the NGO and the 'host-community'. In this complex and contested discursive arena, brokers were strategically translating and shifting interests to create common realities and alliances from heterogeneous networks. By adapting and transforming objectives of the 'good governance' discourse, they were able to unify groups and win over supporters, despite the poor implementation of the project. How these translations competed with interpretations of other actors and how they influenced the brokers' positioning towards the goverment was of particular interest within this research. Applying visual methods has shed light on the performative and emotional dimensions of these translation processes. The ethnographic film 'Fighting for Nothing to Happen', which is the main part of the thesis, is accompanied by the multi-media pdf file that employs different interacting media and provides historical, political and socioeconomic background to selected sequences of the film. The different media inform and contest each other in a rhizomatic structure that produces a multi-layered and comprehensive understanding of the complexity of brokerage and development in Indonesia.Show less
