This project will study cost-efficient ways of building and utilizing educational infrastructure in underserved communities. Using a case study approach, and multi-sited ethnography, the PI will focus on three communities to determine who infrastructure affects student performance.
This research will result in a dissertation and a trained professional who is dedicated to advancing applied research.
The primary goal of my research is to apply findings from the study of educational infrastructure in informal settlements to the transformation of informal settlement redevelopment strategies toward better integration of housing and education. I define educational infrastructure as the integration of formal and informal practices, knowledge, built structures, and technologies that facilitate the distribution and operation of housing and education toward the continued growth of communities and governments. In support of my research goal, the objectives of my research are to (1) trace the co-evolution of housing and educational infrastructure in the Bamburral, Heliopolis, and São Francisco informal settlements in São Paulo, Brazil since the 1990s; (2) examine the social and spatial dynamics that shape and are shaped by educational infrastructure in each settlement; and (3) explore to what extent community-developed and managed components of educational infrastructure relate to and inform broader understandings of education in and about informal settlements. My preliminary findings demonstrate that the educational spillover effects of self-built housing have compelling social and spatial consequences that align with and are underutilized by Brazil’s progressive urban policies that espouse equity and inclusion. While the extent to which there is a relationship between individuals who construct their own homes and contribute to the construction, management, and maintenance of educational infrastructure depends on context, in the two cases where this connection can be inferred there is significant potential for hybridizing practices and policies in the areas of education and housing that seek to improve informal settlements. This potential, however, must be accompanied by (1) a political will at the municipal level to forge intra-secretarial partnerships and implement the progressive policies presented in Brazil’s Federal Statute of the City and (2) a reconfiguration of the design processes undertaken by planners and architects involved in redevelopment of informal settlements. The intellectual merit of this study is three fold. First, the research not only examines an under-studied aspect of self-building – educational infrastructure – it suggests how it can be used to improve redevelopment strategies. Second, the research contributes to and unites emerging interest in the planning disciplines in the relational analysis of sociological and spatial data afforded by Science and Technology Studies (STS). Third, this research joins the few studies that cast an STS lens on the complex social issues and built environments of the Global South. The broader impacts of this research include (1) a set of methods for use by communities, architects, planners, and policy makers that will guide decisions about which aspects of existing conditions should be integrated into future planning scenarios when informal settlements are redeveloped; (2) the empowerment of community groups with situated data development and its translation into graphic formats can visualize, and thus help to catalyze, long-term change; and (3) the identification of educational infrastructure as a viable alternative that makes room for community development without displacing people, a highly relevant challenge for cities across the developing world.
