The progressive development
of large urban concentrations presents a new setting for social
relations in which cultural identities are redefined. On the one
hand, the indigenous population who emigrate to big cities to
escape poverty or try to improve their lives are forced to adapt
to urban life; on the other hand, the urban identity absorbs and
reflects the diversity of the identities that shape it.
The boom of megacities is expected to bring more complex social
relations than those that have existed in urban centres until
now and poses the necessity to orient urban development towards
the twenty-first century. By 2007, half of the world's population
will live in cities and, if this continues, two out of three people
in the world in 2030 will live in a big city. This trend has been
growing since the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1900,
London had nearly 6.5 million inhabitants, and by 2000 over 30
urban centres superseded this number, while another 10 reported
more inhabitants than were living in New York in 1950 (12.3 million).
This fact is already changing the profile of social identities
in the urban setting, and the unstoppable evolution towards the
megacity will change it even further. Beyond the multicultural
or assimilationist models of social organization, the urban map
in the twenty-first century will reflect a complex relationship
between identities subjected to the classic tension between the
urban and rural worlds, compounded by the tension modernism poses
for traditional cultures.
Teresita Antazu, an indigenous Yanesha, is spokesperson for the
Interethnic Association on the Development of the Peruvian Jungle.
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| Living in
a city is all new for a migrant coming from the rural areas.
Photo courtesy of Fundación
Intervida |
Indigenous women who have emigrated to Lima, a megacity with over
9 million inhabitants, turn to her. "Indigenous women say
that they come to the capital because in the jungle they are poor;
but I say to them, where are you poorer? There, there is an abundance
of food and here you are hungry. In the city, things cost money
and you can't eat every time you are hungry, or pick fruit off
a tree."
According to United Nations figures, the world population will
rise from 6,400 million to 8,000 million people within the next
25 years, of which 5,000 million will live in big cities. Projections
indicate that in 2030 all regions of the world will have an urban
majority population (Africa 54% and Asia 55%). A study conducted
in 11 countries by the Roles of Agriculture reveals that 800 million
have emigrated from the country to the city over the past 50 years.
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimates that in
China alone there are over 140 million migrants, the majority
of whom are women and children.
Nowadays, cities are the stage for world globalization, where
economies of scale and international information channels are
concentrated. As Voula Mega, investigator for the European Foundation
for the Improvement of Living and Work Conditions, affirms, "globalization
offers cities the opportunity to convert themselves in world actors,
but it also determines processes of change independent of local
communities". The city embodies the human desire for a better
future, but at the risk of endangering the harmony between progress
and coexistence among different heterogeneous social groups.
Poverty and identity: the case of Peru
Since the time of its colonization, Peru's indigenous population
has been the object of social, political, cultural and economic
exclusion. The lack of opportunities causes many families to emigrate
to the city in the hope of a better life. However, it is not long
before they realize that resources in the city come at a higher
cost. Oftentimes, they are marginalized for the mere fact that
they have indigenous traits. Teresita Antazu says, "They
called me chuncha, they said that our cushmas-typical indigenous
clothing dyed with plant roots-smelled bad and that we brought
witchcraft, because we wore earrings made from seeds".
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Indigenous people find themselves in a
new and hostile environment. Adaptation and mixture of
relationships can be found between the citizens and the
new-citizens.
Photo courtesy
of Fundación Intervida
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The marginalization of this external identity (language, clothing,
social relations, group functioning, traditions and religion)
is reflected in the statistics, which clearly show a higher rate
of poverty among the indigenous Peruvian population (61%) as compared
with the non-indigenous (45.5%). In terms of extreme poverty--living
on less than one euro a day--the ratio increases to up to 16 per
cent of urban indigenous and 6 per cent of the non-indigenous.
Internal and external identities: Guatemala
An investigation carried out by the Intervida World Alliance (INWA)
Studies team in Guatemala adds certain nuances to the process
of cultural identification of the indigenous population in the
area. The study, "Changes in traditional identity, interethnic
identities and their effect on the processes of development in
indigenous communities in Guatemala", reports that there
exists a process of acculturation, which may be understood as
"a change of attitudes and behaviour which occur either consciously
or subconsciously in multicultural societies", where "a
person may acquire patterns of another culture while at the same
time maintaining their own".
The study also states that indigenous identity in the rural setting
does not significantly lose its external components when entering
into contact with modern cultural norms. Furthermore, it did not
observe changes in the internal components of the identity, but
rather a tendency to strengthen them in the rural setting. This
internal component is nourished by a cognitive dimension-knowledge
of the historical legacy, values, and images of the group-and
an affective dimension (the feelings of belonging, association,
group patterns), as well as a morality with respect to relationships
of solidarity.
The study indicates that it is likely in the future certain external
components would diminish or even disappear upon coming into contact
with strange elements, even if the internal components are strengthened
to maintain the link between the traditional and the new. The
result of this coexistence between tradition and modernity in
the rural setting serves as a reference in analyzing the changes
produced as a result of the migration of these communities to
the urban setting, especially in the face of the growth of the
megacity. It should be pointed out that this is not a unidirectional
occurrence, since recent studies of this phenomenon in Latin America
observe an "indianization"-in the Guatemalan case some
call this "mayanization"-of the city, society and the
popular classes.
The urban self and generational lines
Studies of the Mapuche community, conducted by the Chilean institute
CASEN, concluded that emigrants of this ethnicity lose their indigenous
identity in successive urban generations. As such, the first wave
of migration gives way to a mixed generation with an ambiguous
cultural identity that tends to assume the predominant identity
and hide the indigenous one. Over time, however, the new generations
looked to recover and reaffirm their identity. The indigenous
emigrants in the city assume new urban identity lines, which in
many cases reject the anterior one.
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Migrants from
the rural areas usually find occupation in the city markets
selling their own local products.
Photo courtesy of Fundación
Intervida |
In terms of internal identity, the reinforcement or recovery of
the affective, cognitive or moral traits occurred only after a
period of adaptation and coexistence with the new identity in
the urban setting, whether as a refuge from the insecurity of
the setting or as a reaffirmation of the plurality that is permitted
in a big city. Anthropologists like Doreen Massey suggest that
the big city represents a unique identity, as compared with the
rural setting, with space for indigenous identities once detached
from their external aspects and whose internal aspects adapt to
the urban setting. The set of relations we have mentioned are
produced in passing from the rural to the urban setting, with
the latter being irrevocably overcome by the new space of the
megacity. This poses a distinct scene with a greater reach than
the big city, and implies different and unknown identity relations
and acculturation processes.
The powerful influence of the city
What moves people to the big cities? According to experts like
Jose Maria Llop, Director of the programme on "Intermediate
Cities and World Urbanization" in the International Union
of Architects, one could talk of the "fascination" that
the city provokes as an image or interpretation of reality in
its greatest socio-economic and historic scale. Some sociologists
and anthropologists agree that the modern city represents the
ultimate capitalist structure, the height of civilization, and
its influence on the collective subconscious could be powerful
enough to attract more and more people, even when the opportunities
for progress and well-being are often false expectations.
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Unemployment
is very common among the migrant population from the rural
areas.
Photo courtesy of Fundación
Intervida |
The great megalopolis or world metropolis of our era, which many
call an "urban tevolution", is characterized by their
duality in presenting a series of opportunities and problems.
The first refers to greater autonomy, diversity of offers (employment,
training, leisure, culture), the opportunity to participate in
public politics, the socialization of new technologies and more
options in terms of residence, activities or types of mobility.
However, never has social segregation in a space been so pronounced,
with growing inequalities in income and real access to urban opportunities,
vulnerable groups that often live in ghettos or peripheral neighbourhoods,
and the increase in both transport time and time at work-a breeding
ground for solitude and a lack of solidarity, and common environmental,
urban and social problems--criminality, poor outskirts, breakdown
of common living structures.
Uncertainty about the future generated anxiety, identities and
references are weakened or disappear, and there is a crisis of
political representation and opacity in the institutions acting
in the area. It is the frustration of the hopes created by the
"urban revolution", and the collective and individual
malaise that is latent in the lives of today's cities. As was
expressed in the third International Megacities Conference held
in Bonn, Germany in 2004, the heat of the large metropolis breeds
processes of change in political, economic, cultural and social
systems, whose effects extend beyond the city itself.
A human and conceptual gap
Rejection of the indigenous or rural condition appears to be the
price the big city demands from those who wish to form part of
its common progress. Abandonment of certain elements of their
culture, the transformation of others through a gradual mixing
of races, or the loss of many traditions or customs, form part
of this phenomenon to which are added distinct changes in the
individual-societal, market-economy and city-State relationships
so characteristic of the modern megacities.
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Locals from a small village in Guatemala migrate to the
big city looking for a better job.
Photo courtesy of Fundación
Intervida |
To plan appropriately, it is not enough just to have a full
understanding of the characteristic phenomena of the urban world,
which are accelerated and amplified in larger cities, especially
those set in the context of extreme social vulnerability and
disintegration; it is equally as important to anticipate these
phenomena. The experiences in some megacities (Rio de Janeiro,
Buenos Aires, Lima, Los Angeles) demonstrate that policies to
fight marginalization and criminality based on increased security
measures do not have the desired effect. On the contrary, pilot
experiences in European cities like Galway, Maastricht, Alicante
or Barcelona have shown that strengthening community ties and
the social integration of different city agents has obtained
positive results.
It would be naive and off-base to propose a transfer or simple
adaptation of good practices from the "north" to the
"south", but considering that two thirds of the 30
main urban conglomerates are found in developing countries,
the search for solutions suggests the importance of managing
and exchanging experiences, problems and actions. We should
not reject the adaptation of existing policies and practices,
or the appearance of new and native models of coexistence and
megacity culture, including the range of creative actions that
emerge from this continuum. Furthermore, this horizon goes beyond
the divergence of multicultural or assimiliationist models,
and considers a new urban space where the concentration and
expression of ethnic and cultural diversity renew the "urban
revolution" in cities of the twenty-first century.
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Irregular
urbanisation is one of the biggest problems in the megacities,
involving social and economical marginalisation
Photo courtesy of Fundación
Intervida |
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Print 
Alfonso
Hernández is responsible for the Intervida World Alliance
(INWA) Studies. He has been working in the field of cooperation
since 1999, developing the communication department of some
local non-governmental organizations and collaborating as
a staff editor with other organizations like UNHCR Spain.
He is a specialist in content and knowledge management systems
and the author of "Vidas invisibles", a book about
sexual exploitation of children (ed. INWA, 2007).