Informal settlements and transition spaces: methodical criteria and territorial transformation, from the complexity

Abstract

Transdisciplinarity and uncertainty in informal settlements are two themes integrated with the complexity approach; which not only recognizing the intricacy of the problem, but also, in the case of this article, contemplates that many of the methods used to carry out studies on territorial transformations in informal settlements and their transitional spaces, with scientific, reductionist, unidisciplinary or multidisciplinary postures, have generated inconclusive, accumulated solutions, with static, repetitive and deterministic methods and criteria, according to interests alien to those who inhabit this type of emerging territory. Therefore, the study described here aimed to intervene in some informal settlements and transitional spaces from complexity, transdisciplinarity, multisystemic uncertainty and case studies to formulate criteria related to a complex method, and forms of territorial transformation. The method used is related to mixed research, where some reflections are raised and some results are shown around the complex approach using transdisciplinary processes, considering the sociocultural realities and the logic of the third included. The results are preliminarily expressed in an outline of the methodical process and some criteria are proposed to intervene informal settlements from the perspective of complexity. Likewise, some techniques applied in the selected samples of the case studies for data collection are introduced in a general way. In addition, some forms of analysis experimented from the complex approach are shown. In this way, two major findings can be identified: 1) a research model as a preliminary method of intervention in informal settlements and transition spaces, called “analytical relational process”, reinforced with some general criteria associated with the preliminary method, according to the selected case studies and with the possibility of making some kind of transfer in similar informal settlements seen from the complexity. 2) the identification of four types of multisystemic relationships associated with distinct levels of uncertainty and some principles of complexity: the deterritorialized, the hologrammatic, the recursive and the dialogic ones. In the light of these findings, discussions and conclusions associated with transdisciplinarity and uncertainty are put forward.