Martijn Koster received Consolidator Grant

Martijn Koster received a €2 million Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) for his research:

Politics of the Periphery in Urban Latin America: Reconceptualising Politics from the Margins

Is building more housing the solution to the housing shortage? Can poverty be solved by increasing social assistance? Can distrust in the government be solved by more participation? According to Martijn Koster, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Development Sociology (CAOS) at Radboud University, we still too often view such social issues from the perspective of the government. That is both unjust and unjustified, he argues: "Recognition of other, often marginalised, perspectives on society is essential to do more justice to the situation of disadvantaged residents".

That is why he and a team of PhD students and postdocs are going to Medellín (Colombia), Santiago de Cuba (Cuba) and Recife (Brazil) to spend over a year conducting field research on issues of housing, politics and the role of the state in Latin America. In doing so, they do not put the state but the residents of favelas, comunas and barrios populares at the centre: the low-income neighbourhoods of the cities. They do this not from behind their desks but by living in the neighbourhoods and actively engaging with the residents and their civic initiatives, meetings and protests. It is part of a five-year study, starting in January 2024.

Read more at: https://www.ru.nl/en/research/research-news/what-does-a-year-of-research-in-favelas-teach-us-about-politics?