Week 13 Summary Statements
Mike Davis, “The Prevalence of Slums” and “Slum Ecology” in Planet of Slums, Verso, 2006,
pp. 20-49 and 121-150.
1. Key words: formal/informal housing; squatting; pirate urbanization; landlordism;
“garbage slums; ”urban edge
2. Mike Davis outlines the historical trajectory and evolution of slums by challenging
definitions and examining specific case studies world-wide, making distinct comparisons
between poor settlements in First World versus Third World countries, and settlements in
the metro core versus the periphery. The overall lack of statistical data and information
regarding slums stems from individuals’ systemic disenfranchisement that inhabit
unauthorized, polluted, hazardous, and largely unowned land on the outskirts of a
metropolis. There are various methods that the poor, refugees, and the marginalized
undertake to be able to survive. Some of them include, “hand-me-down” housing
previously owned and occupied by the bourgeoisie, living on rooftops, “tomb dwellers” –
living in abandoned cemeteries – and “garbage slums,” which exist on the urban edge and
are extremely hazardous and polluted dwellings, or “squatters.” There are also instances
of privatizing squatters, often undertaken by the marginalized to earn a living and further
disenfranchise the poorest of the poor. Such practice is referred to as “landlordism,”
encompassing the complex social relations of slum life as a multifaceted socioeconomic
hierarchy. Given that squatters are prevalent on hazardous land, they are the first housing
systems that are struck by natural disasters.
Eleanor Goldfield, “There is no such thing as a green war,”Roar Magazine, July 5, 2019.
1. Key words: military industrial complex; climate change; the Pentagon; soft reforms;
national security
2. Goldfield’s article bridges the gap between climate change, the refugee crisis, systemic
racism, and imperialism to highlight their inherent interconnectedness. Her critical
argument against the military industrial complex reveals the recent developments of
capitalist exploitation that targets individual responsibility regarding climate change
through consumer culture. In doing so, the US military – the Pentagon and US military
bases around the world – continue to be the leading cause of greenhouse gas emissions.
The US military’s pervasive presence all over the world is justified through a cyclical
self-fulfilling prophecy that terrorizes other countries in order to justify the idea of a
national security threat. The article is a call to action that removes personal shame and
responsibility and urges the reader to understand climate change as a systemic issue that
falls under other forms of oppression, such as racism, class disparities, and mass
displacement of people. In doing so, one can cease to compartmentalize and individualize
oppression.