This study focuses on the city of São Paulo, Brazil and examines the ways in which irregular and illegal growth have influenced the collective action of social movements of the urban poor. The study describes how São Paulo grew as a socially segregated city during the twentieth century due to...

As the world moves towards its so-called urban 'tipping point',urbanization in the global South has increasingly come to be portrayed as the portent of a dystopian future characterized by ever-mounting levels of anarchy and brutality. The association between cities, violence, and disorder is not...

Dar es Salaam is exceptional in East Africa for having a record of relatively little ethnic tension, and remaining tranquil and true to its name, the 'harbour of peace'. This paper explores the interface between ethnic and national identities in Tanzania's capital city, focusing on its ethnic...

This paper aims at understanding the dynamics of sectarian violence in the city of Beirut, by looking at the early phase of violence in the Lebanese civil war (1975-90), and the process of dividing Beirut into various sectarian enclaves controlled by the warring militias. The paper aims to show...

We here use five rounds of Afrobarometer data covering more than 100,000 individuals over the 2004-2016 period to explore the link between self-assessed measures of living conditions and objective measures of individual well-being (access to basic needs). These latter are picked up by various...

The informal sector has long been viewed as a locus of the disadvantaged, unskilled, and inexperienced workers in under-developed and developing economies. Workers in the informal sector, however, can learn skills and gain experience that could help them switch to better-paying jobs in the...

This paper uses three waves of Tanzanian National Panel Surveys (2008/09, 2010/11, and 2012/13) to construct a panel from 3,676 households that appear in at least two waves to explore the effect of income diversification on household welfare measured in terms of food consumption. The analysis...

We here use repeated cross-section data from the Afrobarometer, Asianbarometer Latinobarometer, and Eurobarometer to analyse the variables that are correlated with both current and future evaluations of standards of living. These are related not only to an individual's own economic resources but...

Average adult height is a physical measure of the biological standard of living of a population. While the biological and economic standards of living of a population are very different concepts, they are linked and may empirically move together. If this is so, then cohort heights can also be...

Diversification of household activities away from agriculture is a key characteristic of economic development. We examine the extent of diversification among Vietnamese households, from agriculture into waged employment and entrepreneurship and whether this diversification is welfare enhancing....