Doctoral Dissertation Research: Urbanization and Social Movements

如何解释乌拉圭蒙得维的亚最近土地非法占用的激增和动态？在过去的几十年里，蒙得维的亚的棚户区急剧增加，直到20世纪80年代，这个城市还没有贫穷非法定居点的“边界”。如今，大约10%的城市人口居住在非法占用的土地上。住区如雨后春笋般涌现，自然灾害却没有缓解，人口也没有增长。其他部队也在行动。从社会运动的角度来看，该项目挑战了社会经济因素（如贫困）是20世纪90年代土地入侵浪潮的唯一原因的假设。相反，它将检验政治机会和扩散过程是否也形成了周期，并审查机会和扩散转化为动员的机制。本研究将采用统计分析、深度访谈和文献分析相结合的方法，研究从1975年到2005年，深蹲作为一种社会运动的起源和轨迹。该项目是对蒙得维的亚土地入侵的原因和过程进行的第一次系统研究。其次，它将阐明未被充分研究的擅自占用过程方面，特别是擅自占用者的机构和集体行动的政治。第三，该项目将系统地检验和丰富动员的解释理论。将微观和宏观层面的概念结合起来，并追踪行动者将机会转化为动员的因果机制，将补充现有的社会运动理论。总的来说，该项目将有助于理解有争议的政治，以及作为其特殊形式之一的土地占用，并直接丰富拉丁美洲城市化的学术体系。研究结果可能被学者、政策制定者和人权工作者使用，他们希望设计更有效和有意义的政策，以克服通常与棚户社区和其他边缘化群体相关的社会问题，如贫困、失业和缺乏基本服务。

SES-0623062John MarkoffMaria AlverezWhat explains the recent explosion and dynamics of land squatting in Montevideo, Uruguay? Over the last few decades squatter settlements have increased dramatically in Montevideo, a city that lacked a "frontier" of poor illegal settlements until the 1980s. Today, about 10 % of the city's population lives on illegally occupied land. Settlements mushroomed without mediating natural disasters and without population growth. Other forces were in action. From a social movement perspective, this project challenges the assumption that socioeconomic factors such as poverty were the only causes of the wave of land invasions in the 1990s. Instead, it will test whether political opportunities and diffusion processes also shaped the cycle and examine the mechanisms through which opportunities and diffusion translated into mobilization. The research will use a combination of statistical analysis, in depth interviews and document analysis, to study the origins and trajectories of squatting as a social movement from 1975 to 2005. The project represents the first systematic study of the causes and processes of land invasions in Montevideo. Secondly, it will illuminate understudied aspects of the process of squatting, especially the agency of squatters and the politics of collective action. And, third, the project will systematically test and enrich explanatory theories of mobilization. Deploying micro- and macro-level concepts together and tracking causal mechanisms through which actors may translate opportunities into mobilization will supplement existing social movement theoryBroader Impacts. Overall, the project will contribute to the understanding of contentious politics in general and of land squatting as one of its particular forms and directly enrich the body of scholarship on urbanization in Latin America. Research findings can possibly be used by scholars, policymakers, and human right workers who want to design more efficient and meaningful policies to overcome the social problems commonly associated with squatter communities and other marginalized groups, such as poverty, unemployment and lack of essential services.