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Recent experiences of socio-environmental disasters in Latin America have demonstrated the ineffectiveness of the state as a social actor in the organisation, coordination and implementation of adequate public policies to face these emergencies. This affects the most vulnerable urban areas, leading to unequal levels of impact from crises and disasters within cities. As a response, local collective actions, led by citizens, have emerged to manage risks. In Medellín, Colombia, in the context of the current COVID-19 crisis, our research identified a diverse repertoire of collective actions within informal, vulnerable communities, including collaboration towards improving food security, sanitation, pedagogy for self-care and prevention, and financial aid. Although these actions have had limited scope within the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, they demonstrate the need to promote a more proactive interaction between society and the state, based on a series of agreed interventions, promoting the exchange of knowledge and articulation of actions in the production and improvement of informal urban areas. This research explores how these collective actions have developed through a set of semi-structured interviews with community leaders and key actors in Medellín, with a view to identifying lessons for state-community dynamics in relation to disaster risk management and achieving a more integrated approach to improving habitat conditions within vulnerable urban areas. This work demonstrates that vulnerable communities in informal urban settlements can actively address their exposure to risk through locally-oriented, bottom-up collective actions. However, key linkages with institutional frameworks are needed to strengthen state-community dynamics and facilitate sustainable, inclusive and equitable development in cities.

ispartof: Why Latin America matters - a Collection of Essays pages:370-383 ispartof: pages:370-383 status: published

During the nineteenth century, the process of nation-building in Latin America was accompanied by the creation of publicly funded art academies charged with the delicate task of forging new images for the newly independent countries. This essay intends to offer an overview of Latin American academic art by focusing primarily on the transatlantic mobility of artists and artworks during the nineteenth century. The training and experience that Latin American students of art could acquire during their prolonged sojourns in Europe allowed them to become familiar with new artistic languages and techniques and to intervene directly in the cosmopolitan debate about the role of art in modern societies. The new global turn in art-historical studies provides us today with the unique opportunity to look at the transnational dimension of nineteenthcentury Latin American art through new conceptual lenses and to unravel new aspects of the shared cultural heritage that links Europe to Latin America.

In Latin America, the post-war period marked a significant epoch of architectural and urbanist experimentation of modernist ideas coming from the other side of the Atlantic. This was the case in Medellín, Colombia and the Functional City approach by CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Modern, in English: International Congresses of Modern Architecture) which conceptualises “the four urban functions,” proposed in the Athens Charter as decisive city planning principles: living, working, recreation and circulation. However, by the late 1950s (with the dissolution of CIAM) and the subsequent decade (1960s) CIAM’s ideas started losing credibility and support. While modernist urbanism was declining, large-scale economic-oriented approaches by international agencies permeated the formulation of development plans. This was the case with the planning approach proposed for Colombia by BIRF (Inter-American Bank for Reconstruction and Development) based on industrial production. These approaches led to (ongoing) transformations in the Colombian urbanist approach, concentrating on socio-economic development. Despite these transformations and in contrary to local urbanists’ impression that CIAM principles have been surpassed decades ago, the dissertation argues that Functional City principles continue to shape Medellin’s urban development today. The research involves a historical study of CIAM, its philosophy (especially regarding urban design – Functional City) its application and ‘’centre of gravity’’ relocation to Latin America, where this approach has been implemented over last 60 years. Consequently, a comparative case study, based on historical primary and secondary sources was undertaken. The Functional City plans of three cities were analysed: Buenos Aires (1938-9), Bogotá (1953), and Brasília (1957). Subsequently, an in-depth case study of Medellín, Colombia, including recent plans was carried out. It was based mainly on primary data sources; local historical archives (original plans and reports), which produced a unique set of evidence that was supported through interviews with key participants and direct researcher’s observations. This study contributes to a better understanding of current urbanisation patterns In Latin America. Furthermore, this study will invite reflection and public debate over questions such as: urbanization for whom/against whom and who decides? Particularly, it provides indicators for a desirable future course of action in Colombian urban planning that would benefit directly local and national authorities. This benefit would be through the provision of new insights and evidence to enable their work supporting resource management and sustainable urban development. Moreover, this will contribute to the design of effective policy and practice for facilitating longer-term development in ways that are positive for the population, which may well have applicability to other cities in Latin America.