Intensive Case Study Methodology for the Analysis of Self-Help Housing Consolidation, Household Organization and Family Mobility

Peter M. Ward, Edith R. Jiménez Huerta, María Mercedes Di Virgilio

Departamento de Estudios Regionales, Universidad de Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Mexico.
Department of Sociology, &The Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA.
Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina;Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

DOI: 10.4236/cus.2014.22010                

Abstract

The paper describes an innovative methodology developed as part of a major “mixed methods” collaborative and multidisciplinary research project across several Latin American cities. It offers a systematic “hands-on” methodology about how to conduct multi-disciplinary and team-based intensive case studies of low-income household dynamics and trajectories in self-help dwelling structures in (now) consolidated low-income settlements of Latin America. The research project describes how to collect information about family genealogies, household organization and individual member mobility, tied to materials that allow for the construction of detailed housing plans and architectonic diagrams resulting from self-building in informal settlements over a thirty-year period. The majority of the original “owner” self-builders still reside in these (now) consolidated properties, and the methodology provides for cross generational analysis of household behavior in relation to the dynamics of dwelling construction and use of space, household organization, inheritance and heirship.

Keywords

Case Study Methodology, Informal Settlements, Latin America, Dwelling Spaces, Trans-Generational Inheritance, Mobility Patterns

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	Bertaux, D. (1996). Historia de casos de familia como método para la investigación de la pobreza. Buenos Aires: Revista Sociedad, Cultura y Política.
[2]	Berube, A., Lang, R. E., & Katz, B. (2005). Redefining Urban and Suburban America. Washington DC: Brookings Institution.
[3]	Coleman, J. S. (1988). Social Capital and the Creation of Human Capital. Journal of Sociology, 94, 95-120.
[4]	Creswell, J. (2013). Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing among Five Approaches (3rd ed). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
[5]	Dunning, T. (2012). Natural Experiments in the Social Sciences: A Design-Based Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[6]	Durst, N. & Ward, P. M. (2014). Measuring Self-Help Home Improvements in Texas Colonias: A Ten Year Snapshot Study. Urban Studies, 51. http://usj.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/11/20/0042098013506062
[7]	Gans, H. (1962). The Urban Villagers. New York: The Free Press.
[8]	Gilbert, A. (1996). The Mega-City in Latin America. New York: United Nations University Press.
[9]	Gilbert A. (1999). A Home Is Forever? Residential Mobility and Homeownership in Self Help Settlements. Environment and Planning. 31, 1073-1091 http://dx.doi.org/10.1068/a311073
[10]	Gilbert, A., & Ward, P. (1985). Housing, the State and the Poor: Policy and Practice in Three Latin American Cities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[11]	González de la Rocha, M. (1994). The Resources of Poverty. Women and Survival in a Mexican City. Blackwell: Oxford.
[12]	Grajeda, E., & Ward, P. M. (2012). Inheritance and Succession in Informal settlements of Latin American Cities: A Mexican Case Study. Latin American Research Review, 47, 138-162.
[13]	Leacock, E., (1971). The Culture of Poverty: A Critique. New York: Simon and Schuster.
[14]	Lewis, O. (1961). Five Families: Mexican Case Study in the Culture of Poverty. New York: Random House.
[15]	Lewis, O. (1968). A Study of Slum Culture: Backgrounds for La Vida. New York: Random House.
[16]	Menéndez, E. (1992). Grupo doméstico y proceso salud/enfermedad/atención. Del “teoricismo” al movimiento continuo. En Cuadernos Médico Sociales, 59, 3-18. Rosario: Centro de Estudios Sanitarios y Sociales.
[17]	Portes, A. (1972). Rationality in the Slum: An Essay in Interpretive Sociology. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 14, 268-286. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S001041750000668X
[18]	Putnam, R. (1993). Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
[19]	Sautu, R. (2004). El método biográfico. La Reconstrucción de la sociedad a partir del testimonio de los actores. Buenos Aires: Lumiere.
[20]	Safa, H. (1970). The Poor Are Like Everyone Else, Oscar. Psychology Today, 4, 26-32.
[21]	Stake, R. (1995). The Art of Case Study Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
[22]	Suttles, G. (1974). The Social Order of the Slum: Ethnicity and Territory in the Inner City. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
[23]	UN-Habitat (2003). The Challenge of Slums. Global Report on Human Settlements. United Nations Human Settlements Programme, Earthscan Publications Ltd., London and Sterling.
[24]	UN-Habitat (2006). State of the World’s Cities 2006/7. The Millennium, Development Goals and Urban Sustainability: 30 Years Shaping the Habitat Agenda, United Nations Human Settlements Programme, Earthscan Publications Ltd., London and Sterling.
[25]	Valentine, C. A. (1968). Culture and Poverty: Critique and Counter-Proposals. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
[26]	Varley, A. (1994). Housing the Household, Holding the House. In G. Jones, & P. Ward (Eds.), Methodology for Land and Housing Market Analysis (pp. 120-134). Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
[27]	Young, M. & Willmot, P. (1957). Family and Kinship in East London. London: Routledge and Keegan Paul.
[28]	Ward, P. M. (2012). “A Patrimony for the Children”: Low-Income Homeownership and Housing (Im)Mobility in Latin American Cities. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 102, 1489-1510. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00045608.2011.628260
[29]	Ward, P. M., Jiménez, E., & Di Virgilio, M. (2014). Housing Policy in Latin American Cities: A New Generation of Strategies and Approaches for 2016 Un-Habitat III. London: Routledge.