Rethinking the Informal City: Critical Perspectives from Latin America - Paperback

by Felipe Hernández (Editor), Peter Kellett (Editor), Lea Knudsen Allen (Editor)

Latin American cities have always been characterized by a strong tension between what is vaguely described as their formal and informal dimensions. However, the terms formal and informal refer not only to the physical aspect of cities but also to their entire socio-political fabric. Informal cities and settlements exceed the structures of order, control and homogeneity that one expects to find in a formal city; therefore the contributors to this volume - from such disciplines as architecture, urban planning, anthropology, urban design, cultural and urban studies and sociology - focus on alternative methods of analysis in order to study the phenomenon of urban informality. This book provides a thorough review of the work that is currently being carried out by scholars, practitioners and governmental institutions, in and outside Latin America, on the question of informal cities.

Author Biography

Lea Knudsen Allen received her Ph.D. from the Department of English Literatures and Cultures at Brown University. She has worked extensively on issues to do with postcolonial discourse, transmigration and cultural representation. Her doctoral thesis, entitled "Cosmopolite Subjectivities and the Mediterranean in Early Modern England," explored these topics in the context of early modern English drama, poetry and travel literature. She has published on exoticism and international trade in the work of Jonson and Marlowe. Additionally, Dr. Allen has an interest in representations of urban and social space, a topic on which she has also published. Currently, she lives in the United Kingdom and teaches for the Universities of Maine (USA) and supervises students for Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge.