Autorecovery and everyday disaster in Mexico City’s peripheries

Bibliographic Data

ID7761696
AuthorsBeki Mcelvain (0000-0002-2505-6161, University of California, USA, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume41
Issue2
Pages253-274
Publication date2023-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironment and Planning D Society and Space (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0263-7758 • E-ISSN: 1472-3433
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/02637758231161613
OpenAlexW4324095602
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited43

This article is concerned with urbanization as it shapes and is shaped by disaster finance instruments. It takes a critical look at the specific urbanizing qualities of these instruments by bringing an established theory of peripheral urbanization together with recent work on disaster urbanization to advance a theory of ‘everyday disaster’—or smaller-scale events that occur repeatedly in the same areas, or events with extended recovery periods so prolonged that they integrate with the precarities of everyday life; and ‘autorecovery’—or recovery processes that self-organize and improvise in response to the uneven distribution of state resources. It grounds these theories in extended ethnographic work done in Mexico City. It argues that where localized everyday disasters are ongoing, they fall through the cracks of existing financing schemes because of ongoing scalar mismatches between instruments and actually existing disaster conditions. These mismatches are compounded by state neglect and facilitated by the disconnectedness that defines peripheries. As disaster governance in global Southern states is pushed to global markets through risk transfer instruments, failure to effectively insure everyday disasters expands spaces of precarity that reproduce peripheral processes. These forms of governance affect urban spatial configurations, not only through disaster itself, but through modes of repair like autorecovery

Business · Corporate governance · Economic geography · Economic growth · Economics · Everyday life · Geography · Political economy · Political science · Sociology · Urbanization · Climate Change, Adaptation, Migration · Disaster Management and Resilience · Flood Risk Assessment and Management · Law · Urban Studies · Finance

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