PhD by Research

Can community participation rebalance housing land rights? Case of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Investigator: Lukangaka Luke Okende

Supervisors: Dr Mihaela Anca Ciupala; Roland F. Karthaus

Like many amongst the African Sub-Saharan cities, Kinshasa the capital city of the Democratic Republic of Congo is confronted to a growing urban deterioration; absence of suitable infrastructures, poor quality of public services facilities and lack of quality housing for largest number of residents. A long period of political instability since the early postcolonial period, prevalent corruption in a context of poor governance and the ambiguous role of traditional chiefdom hierarchies (regarded as the landlords) in the process of urban land acquisitions are identified as keys contextual factors. Nevertheless, an absence of a sustainable urban development strategy, a comprehensive planning model in a city confronted to a fast demographic rate and a decline of socioeconomic standard amongst majority of residents over the years, have resulted to an unbalanced dysfunction system which contributed to an urban city development of two independent modes; one side dominated by accumulation of foreign private capital investments while another side by proliferations of informal settlements with a physical manifestation of slums constructions. Contextually, we propose to investigate while looking at a limited intervention adjacent to slums areas in Kingasani and camp Luka with a view to seeing if it can perform well. The essence of this research wishes to test whether community participation can offer an alternative process that can contribute to improving land rights and urban development at the grass-roots level, To fulfil this task we opt for focus groups on minor scale area in Kingasani and camp Luka even that this choice is not fully representative for city of Kinshasa however, it can be extended to big scale with consideration to the particular aspects of each location.

Key words: urban lands acquisitions, chiefdom authority, sustainable housing, community participation, urban poverty, slum constructions, private city space, urban planning.

PhD by Research

Can self-help housing (SHH), empower homeless communities and grow their agency?

Investigator: Mark Sustr

Supervisors: Roland Karthaus, Anna Minton, Renée Tobe

Problems experienced by the homeless cannot always be resolved simply through access to decent housing. Although a stable home is important, it doesn’t necessarily address the reasons that originally led to homelessness. Neither does it reconcile the debilitating effect of time spent living on the margins of society, often excluded from social norms. Given this community routinely experience rejection, often moved from public view, or are stigmatised as deviant - the effect is to deny them the sense that they are valued or that their contributions are worthwhile. Such social exclusion is therefore not simply a problem of inequity, but of questionable representation.

Homelessness

Problems experienced by the homeless cannot always be resolved simply through access to decent housing. Although a stable home is important, it doesn’t necessarily address the reasons that originally led to homelessness. Neither does it reconcile the debilitating effect of time spent living on the margins of society, often excluded from social norms. Given this community routinely experience rejection, often moved from public view, or are stigmatised as deviant - the effect is to deny them the sense that they are valued or that their contributions are worthwhile. Such social exclusion is therefore not simply a problem of inequity, but of questionable representation.

Increasingly, due to the proliferation of marginal communities and informal settlements, there is a growing global interest in what can be learnt from these communities, in particular the alternative skill sets they possess - born out of a necessity to maximise the potential of the limited resources at their disposal.