Controlling the Means of Production: The Urban Poor in An Age of Globalisation

Although the social variables of modernity and dependency theory have given way to neo-liberalism and globalism, life strategies of the urban poor in Latin America have not necessarily changed. At the same time, current sociological research reflects methodological distance in relation to the urban poor as a subject. This article employs the methodological advantages of observation/participation to show that the strategies of the urban poor in one of Latin America's largest slums are coherent and integrated, and reveal an inner logic that not only allow them to survive the harsh realities of globalism, but enable them contribute to popular urban culture. Self-help housing, the informal economy, and grassroots participation in Pentecostal Religion are inextricably bound by providing marginalised people a degree of autonomy and control over the production of certain cultural forms and their meaning.