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The DPU produces engaging blogs written by staff, students, alumni and partners on a range of relevant and topical subjects
In bitterness you can find sweetness: insights from the 2022 world toilet day “making the invisible visible” overdue campaign
By: Nadine Coetzee and Nelly Leblond, with contributions from Adriana Allen, Claudy Vouhé and Julia Wesely
Originally published by OVERDUE
Female genital mutilation and seeking asylum in Europe
As part of an 8-month engagement in one of the ‘hotspot islands’ in Greece, Ignacia Ossul Vermehren shares insights into how FGM/C is an invisible yet pressing issue for female asylum seekers.
Can global reporting bring about transformation?
By Alexandre Apsan Frediani and Camila Cociña
Archiving border(ing) knowledge through networking
By Rita Lambert, Ioanna Manoussaki-Adamopoulou and Jessie Sullivan
A home for Seiichi’s family: Ninety-two-years of Japanese Housing History
This housing story will explore the housing history of my grandfather named Seiichi Aota. Throughout his 92 years (1928-2019), Japan experienced WWII, economic rise and fall, globalisation, and big earthquakes. The housing policies and land use have changed confronted changing socio-economic and political situations. From the perspective of my grandfather, this essay aims to highlight Japanese political context on housing. Interviews with his children (Aota family 2020, personal communication, March 2020) tell his housing story and livelihood.
A Roof of Her (their) Own: Self-Constructing a Home in Lima
Introduction
Through time, the struggle of people who migrated from Peruvian rural areas to Lima, the capital of Peru, has been marked by the “informal” occupation of the land that has transformed Lima into a megalopolis. In this context, the story of Maria kicks off in the 1960s when her family was forced to move from their original Tayabamba, a small town in the Andes, to Lima. Her emigration story is the trajectory of thousands of families that were forced to occupy Lima’s outskirts due to Shining Path terrorist actions in several towns of Peru.
The Israeli Shikun Story
Upon Israel’s establishment in 1948, a public and national housing block(s) programme, referred to in Hebrew as shikun or shikunim (plural), was established to provide dwellings to Jewish refugees and immigrants. The shikunim, the most common dwelling form in Israel, became increasingly controversial, leading to political strife, as well as turning into a symbol of the nation’s birth and of the Israeli government’s discriminating treatment of Mizrahi Jews,[1] most of who became the shikunim residents.
Now and then. Precariousness, double standards and racism in housing refugees
By Giovanna Astolfo, Harriet Allsopp, Maciej Duszczyk, Yvonne Franz, Annegret Haase, Karlis Laksevics, Bahanur Nasya, Ieva Raubisko, Ursula Reeger, Anika Schmidt
From a foundry-laborer in Moradabad to a foundry-owner in Mumbai: The housing journey of Ahmed and his family
This essay is the housing story of Ahmed (pseudonym) and his family, as it parallels housing-policy shifts in India, particularly in Mumbai. The timeframe for this story intersects with the three decades of economic liberalization and policy deregulation in India. As this personal trajectory unfolds in Dharavi, one of the biggest slums in Asia, it raises simultaneous questions and issues when linked to the social-housing evolution at the municipal and national scale.
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