|
|
|
|
|
|
Resources |
|
|
|
Young Towns of Lima
| Article
# : |
16156 |
|
|
Section : |
CULTURE
|
| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1989 |
2,625 Words |
| Author
: |
William Mangin
William Mangin is professor of anthropology at Syracuse
University. He has completed more than seven years of
fieldwork in Peru since 1951. |
For the past thirty years or so, reporters, anthropologists, architects, and the occasional politician have been "discovering" the social and economic ingenuity and solid achievements of the people who have formed squatter settlements and those who have set up shop in the streets of Lima, Peru. The most recent discoverer is an upper-class Peruvian, Hernando de Soto, who in a recent book, The Other Path [featured in the Book World section of this issue], describes the activities and organization of Lima's ambulantes (street merchants).
De Soto suggests that the ambulantes are the only true capitalists in Peru and says that the government and "legitimate" businesses have much to learn from them. In passing, he says a little about squatter settlements (formerly called barriadas and, for the last twenty years, "young towns"). In many ways, these settlements constitute an even more dramatic example of popular enterprise and initiative and, as de Soto point out, they are part of the same informal sector of the national economy.
When the barriadas first became visible to the general Peruvian population in the late forties, powerful groups in Lima responded by calling for their "eradication." The call was often quite strident, and both squatters and ambulantes were condemned as everything bad in the Peruvian middle-class glossary. They were "communistic" and "anarchistic" at the same time; they were "disorderly" and yet constituted an organized thereat to civilized society. And worst of all, they were Indians--bumpkins (cholos, serranos) from the mountains--who, as "everyone well knew" could never do anything on their own. Therefore, they must be led by outside
... (1920 of 15643 Characters)
Read Full Article
|
|
