Browsing by Subject "urbanisation"

Due to the great need of improving sustainable urban transport and mobility in emerging cities in Latin America, development assistance in the form of Sustainable Urban Mobility planning is currently carried out by national European development agencies and partnerships. This type of assistance is commonly based on successful European experiences and approaches in the field, aiming to decrease both greenhouse gas emissions, poverty and inequality and in the same time to improve accessibility, quality of life and sustainability for the urban citizens. Whilst the model being successful for these purposes in Europe, the emerging nature and different mobility culture of cities in Latin America have experienced different outcomes of Sustainable Urban Mobility planning. The theoretical discussion of this thesis is based on a critical assessment of Modernisation theory and its manifestations in the urban transport sector. The theory would describe the European model of Sustainable Urban Mobility as the “modern”, whereas the mobility paradigm of emerging cities is “yet to be modernised”. This thesis argues that instead of applying the European mobility paradigm on emerging cities, the concept of Sustainable Urban Mobility and its planning models and guidelines need to be contextualised in order to reach the desired outcomes. Through qualitative content analysis of original data from interviews with grassroot level activists, representatives of civil society and non-governmental organisations in the cities of Bogotá and Lima, this thesis shows that the urban structures and mobility culture in the cities differ significantly from the ones in Europe, that lead to different outcomes when applying the European approaches of Sustainable Urban Mobility planning in the cities. The most critical finding is that due to different socioeconomic urban structures, a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and increase of accessibility cannot be reached simultaneously in a short-term timeframe, as the poor people in the outskirts currently cannot afford other transport modes than non-motorised “sustainable” transport. Challenges such as urbanisation and corruption are often considered the main problems for the implementation of sustainable transport measures in emerging cities. This thesis shows that instead of solely focussing on these challenges, one should criticise the non-contextualised methods in use for encountering them and suggests a preventive approach for urban development. The conclusion follows: It is not only the guidance documents in use for development assistance in the field of Sustainable Urban Mobility that needs to be contextualised, but the whole concept.

The aim of this Master’s thesis is to find out what kinds of meanings the Mapuche living in Santiago de Chile give to food and food related practices. The study focuses on the meanings articulated in the interview talk on sociocultural practices and place attachment and is grounded on the notion of language as a tool in the social construction of reality. On the semantic level I study meanings constructed in the interview talk, but I also take into account how these meanings are described as embodied practices. The study has been influenced by place, identity, indigenous, everyday life, migration and memory studies but sets its ground in folklore studies for its aim to study what ’ordinary’ people tell about their life. The study reveals how food articulates culture and life and is related to spiritual and ritualistic practices in the everyday life of the Mapuche. In addition, food is a marker of belonging and identity: it is a way to differentiate us from ’the others’ and to strengthen the meaningful bond to the South, the Araucania region, from where the Mapuche have migrated to Santiago. For the Mapuche, food has an origin. Moreover, food can be seen as a site of memory, remembered in different food dishes and artefacts or by doing or talking about food. Food constructs the past in the present and is used as a tool to move between different spatiotemporal dimensions. There is an important distinction made between living and performing the culture, between adapting the culture ’naturally’ or consciously learning it. Some Mapuche argue that being a Mapuche can only be understood as a feeling inside while others find it important to practice the culture daily. These two opposing views form a basis for a new indigenous cultural theory that can offer understanding on how to practice culture and build identity in urban context distant from the land of origin. In the end, in spite of the worry for the continuity of food related practices to the following generations, food traditions still appear vivid and are actively transmitted in the lives of the Mapuche and show their importance to both migrated and Santiago-born Mapuche.