Nas margens da Arquitectura: a urbanização da pobreza a partir de Katmandu

Abstract

This study, entitled On the margins of architecture: the urbanization of poverty from Kathmandu tries, through an approximation of the disciplinary areas of architecture, urbanism and social sciences, to debate not only the issues of spatiality, but also the understanding of daily life and respective ways of space appropriation by the less visible and studied social groups. Starting from a first contact with another reality - the journey to Kathmandu - this investigation aims to combat a generalised lack of understanding and to demystify some pre-established visions that, often, distance themselves from reality. The said demystification makes it easy to observe that citizenship and democratic space are shrinking in the world; hence it is also intended to give visibility to the recent processes of spatial production, embedded in the capitalist and neoliberal productive logic - focusing on Third World countries. In the face of the above scenario, the aim is to understand the mechanisms underlying these spatial injustices as well as to survey the different policies, capable of responding - or not - to the raised problems. It concludes paying heed to citizen responsibility, as well as to the need for greater social and political awareness in the academic education of architects, whose primary concern should be, nowadays, to legitimize and consolidate alternative practices.