Creative Spaces: Urban Culture and Marginality in Latin America

This book is an interdisciplinary exploration of the different ways in which marginal urban spaces have become privileged locations for creativity in Latin America. This is to say that the essays within the collection reassess dominant theoretical notions of 'marginality' in the region, and argue that in contemporary society, it invariably allows for (if not leads to) the production of the new. Following the unprecedented growth of cities and the expansion of informal housing constructed on occupied land from the mid-twentieth century in Latin America, there have traditionally been two competing, yet intimately connected, conceptions of the urban margins. First, they were viewed as spaces of deprivation, of violence, and of dangerous alterity. Second (and particularly since the 1970s) they have been considered spaces of opportunity, of creativity, and of popular empowerment. Nonetheless, given the urgency of many of the problems that the inhabitants of marginal spaces face, much scholarly literature and public discourse has focused on their unmet material and symbolic needs. Consequently, the creative dimension of marginal spaces has been under-examined, and when considered, frequently romanticised. While conscious of the problems and needs still faced by those living in conditions of marginality in Latin America, the book focuses on the creative re-examination of the concept of marginality, on innovative interventions which provide solutions to the problems encountered in marginal spaces, and on new representations of their inhabitants.