This week Mona’s guest is Soledad Garcia Ferrari, Dean of Latin America and Professor in Global Urbanism and Resilience in Edinburgh College of Art.
Mona Siddiqui: You and I have met over our respective dean roles but can you tell me more about your current research.
Soledad Garcia Ferrari: My research has focused on global urbanism. A few years ago my PhD was about regeneration of growing urban areas but more recently I have focused on informal and vulnerable urban areas that are growing on the rural urban edge of cities and creating informal or low income sectors. These areas are exposed to a range of risks so we are aiming to increase resilience in these areas, working directly with communities and government organisations and NGOs.
MS: And when you use the word resilience, what does that really mean? We use that word a lot nowadays but in your own work how do you quantify resilience?
SGF: I think that resilience has a range of definitions. It would mean something different for a community that has been exposed to, for example, landslide risks like these informal settlements in Medellín than what it may mean for a community in the Galapagos islands which has been affected by changes in their economic model. I think that it’s important to try to understand what resilience means to those directly affected by these challenges. We therefore define resilience in a way that will benefit adapted transformation of these particular communities.
MS: And do you think that over the last few months with Covid-19 pressures and restrictions, have you identified any one distinguishing factor in how you’re looking at this concept?
SGF: This is actually part of our current research. We feel that there has been an increase in collective action emerging in these communities from the Covid-19 crisis. We feel that communities have strengthened their autonomy and their role in negotiating their needs with local governments and local institutions. These collective actions that have emerged through the Covid-19 crisis demonstrate the importance of bottom-up perspectives to increase resilience. For example, in Medellín, Colombia we have seen communities that are developing infrastructures around water – they have organised ways to provide food and water to households that couldn’t access them.
MS: So as you know, this conversation is about one regret and one hope, so looking back at your recent or distant past is there one regret you could share with us?
SGF: I feel that not having been able to be there with these communities we’re trying to help is my regret. Not only with the people directly affected by these challenges but also with the partner academics and NGOs we’re working with. Connecting to them online has not made me feel part of our research in a way that I felt before.
MS: And maybe your hope is linked to that but going forward what is your hope for the future?
SGF: These collective actions we have seen during the Covid-19 crisis have brought the world together, in relation to sharing science, sharing information, understanding of the virus on a global scale. At the same time, we’ve seen all of these local level, collective responses, of communities and people getting together to develop ways in which to respond to the impacts of the crisis from different perspectives or with different needs. I feel that these brought about a sense of community but also a sense of collective values that society, at a local level, has and wants to maintain. My hope is that perhaps at this local level we can begin to promote and support these values and this could help us to develop new socio-economic models and eventually a more inclusive and sustainable society as we move forward.