Becoming durable–becoming makeshift: an assemblage approach to informal settlement construction

Non-durable construction is conventionally used as a criterion for identifying “slum” conditions and a proxy for material well-being. While informal settlements often embody makeshift construction, we seek to disentangle durability from formality to show multiple ways in which durability is formally and informally produced, sustained or diminished over time. Durability in informal settlement is part of a complex adaptive process that incorporates a plurality of types and degrees of both becoming durable and becoming makeshift. This approach enables a better understanding of both the production of “slum” conditions and the “improvement” that is embodied in “improvisation.” Makeshift construction can be a means to durability, and formalized housing can become makeshift. At micro-scales this approach reveals the importance of incremental construction, maintenance and repair. At larger scales it enables a more nuanced understanding of how durability is linked to issues of land tenure, governance, density, land-use mix, political economy, forced eviction and livelihoods. It cuts across binary thinking to show how urban development is always an assemblage of informal and formal upgrading strategies, and how they can work in synergy.