Martijn Koster

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• Ph.D.
• Professor (Associate) at Wageningen University & Research

Why has urban informality in the global North received so little attention? We suggest that this neglect can be explained in part by the tendency of scholarship to reproduce the myth of Northern formality: the widely held belief that informality occurs only in corrupt and clientelist ‘developing countries’. This myth has allowed activities and conn...

Epilogue to special issue "Betrayal in the City: Urban Development Across the Globe" (guest-edited by Martijn Koster & Marie Kolling)

In scholarship on informal politics in Brazil, clientelism is a well-studied phenomenon. While studies of clientelism generally concentrate on elections, campaigning and vote buying, clientelist practices and their impact extend well beyond this temporal and thematic focus. This article develops an approach that builds on theories of brokerage in a...

Since the birth of the discipline, anthropologists have studied politics and the political. At times this has been incidental to other interests, at other times it has been the central research focus. Elections, political institutions, the state, citizenship, and social movements are just a few of anthropologists’ interests. The main contribution o...

Drawing on ethnographic research in El Oasis, a highly precarious self-built settlement in Medellín, Colombia, this article examines the illegal practice of autoconstruction as a material expression of hope. It focuses on the multilayered, symbolic meaning of self-built housing, as it represents the pursuit of dignity, permanence, and agency—as opp...

This workshop brings together early-career and senior social scientists who are researching the Latin American urban periphery. Cities in Latin America have historically suffered from high levels of social and economic inequality. Housing shortages, unemployment, and poverty are pressing challenges in most cities in the region. The urban periphery...

Debates on informality have been mainly structured along dichotomous formal-informal, regular-irregular, or legal-illegal lines, where government and the law equate to formality. Ethnographic studies, however, have oftendemonstrated that formality and informality coexist. An increasing number of scholars have emphasized that theformal and the infor...

This article focuses on PREZEIS, an internationally acclaimed participatory slum governance program in Recife, Brazil. PREZEIS was implemented in 1987 and emerged out of a strong popular movement that resisted forced evictions of squatter settlements under the military regime (1964–1985). To date, however, its main objectives—upgrading slums and re...

Navigating Change - 75th anniversary conference Anthropology and Development Studies Radboud University - organised by all staf members https://www.ru.nl/anthropology/vm/conference-navigating-change/

This collective volume celebrates that 75 years ago the foundation was laid for the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies at Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Former and current staff members reflect on the changing meaning of engaged scholarship in relation to emancipatory issues. They offer a rich variety of essays about...

Call for Papers for the "Future States" conference, organised by the EASA research network on the Anthropologies of the State (AnthroState). We are pleased to announce the Future States conference, which will take place on August 30–31, 2023, in Riga, Latvia. Please consider submitting your abstracts for this exciting conference organised by the...

One-day seminar organized by Martijn Koster (Radboud University) and Matt Wilde (Leicester University)

International Conference at Radboud University in Nijmegen, June 29 - July 1, 2022. This conference was the final collective event of my BROKERS research project, funded by a Starting Grant from the European Research Council.

In recent years, a growing number of scholars have highlighted the presence of urban informality in the Global North. Although we applaud this development, we deplore that this body of literature is characterized by analytical ambiguity and fragmented discussions. More specifically, the literature often reduces or repudiates the political potential...

Drawing on ethnographic research in ‘El Oasis’, a highly precarious self-built settlement in Medellín, Colombia, this article examines the illegal practice of autoconstruction as a material expression of hope. It focuses on the multilayered, symbolic meaning of self-built housing, as it represents the pursuit of dignity, permanence and agency – as...

Anthropology's approach to politics and the political has often relied on Eurocentric understandings in which the state exists as a separate legal order and in which the social contract-in recent decades often analysed in terms of citizenship-is a central notion. In such an understanding, politics is considered a covenant between the state and the...

La COVID-19 ha tenido un impacto tan fuerte debido al modelo de desarrollo económico neoliberal hegemónico de los últimos 40 años. Buscar sociedades más sostenibles, justas, saludables, solidarias y resilientes para el futuro implica no pretender volver a la normalidad.

Posted at EADI blog 'Debating Development Research'. http://www.developmentresearch.eu/?p=935 ... ... COVID-19 has shaken the world. Early emergency responses across the world led to drastic changes in local and global development trajectories within a very short period of time, from food insecurity, schooling and gender inequality, to debt and e...

Across the globe, urban growth continues unabated. This is so despite high levels of inequality, poverty and forms of exclusion that are part and parcel of city life for the many. In response to these challenges, governments have attempted to present solutions that are too often palliative, addressing merely the symptoms of inequalities rather than...

Panel at EASA conference Short abstract: This panel aims to engage critically with the anthropology of the state literature by focusing on relational aspects of the state. Thinking of the state relationally allows us to explore the state in less normative ways and capture the boundary work needed to set the state apart from other entities. Long...

Interview with authors About epilogue in SPECIAL ISSUE: BETRAYAL IN THE CITY: URBAN DEVELOPMENT ACROSS THE GLOBE (DECEMBER 2019, VOLUME 31, ISSUE 3)

In this urban development program in Recife, Brazil, informal settlements were demolished and its residents relocated to these apartments. After the promises of progress, the results were disappointing. Many residents feel betrayed by the authorities: the apartments are small, the building material is of low quality and there is no space for livest...

The global trend away from rural living and towards urbanization continues unabated. This is so despite high levels of inequality, poverty and forms of exclusion that are part and parcel of city life for the many. Indeed, across the globe, growing numbers of urban dwellers struggle to meet even the most basic needs for housing, security, and income...

This brief manifesto signed by 173 Netherlands-based scholars working on issues around development aims to summarize what we know to be critical and successful policy strategies for moving forward during and after the crisis. We propose five key policy proposals for a post-COVID-19 development model, all of which can be implemented immediately and...

Dit beknopte manifest, ondertekend door 170 in Nederland werkende academici die zich bezig houden met internationale ontwikkelingsvraagstukken, presenteert, op basis van bestaand onderzoek en kennis, een vijftal voorstellen voor Nederland na Corona: 1) Vervanging van het huidige ontwikkelingsmodel gericht op generieke groei van het BNP, door een mo...

Expectations of urban upgrading projects in light of the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro oscillated between hopeful prospects and pessimistic anticipation. The different opinions were clearly interwoven with stark socioeconomic inequalities and urban segregation. While authorities spread a celebratory narrative of improvement...

This article provides an ethnographic perspective on urban planning by presenting the creative practices of marginalized slum residents in Recife, Northeast Brazil, who are affected by planners’ decisions. It argues that such a perspective contributes to current critical urban theory in three ways. First, while many studies of urban planning follow...

Invited paper presented at Workshop “Informal Practices in Brazil: Exclusion and Privilege”, February 7, 2020, St Antony's College, University of Oxford Workshop organised by Andreza Aruska de Souza Santos

Binnen participatief stedelijk bestuur spelen bewoners een steeds grotere rol. De overheid streeft naar co-creatie en doet vaker een beroep op actieve burgers. Bepaalde bewoners werpen zich op als vertegenwoordigers van anderen. Gebaseerd op onderzoek in Brazilië en Nederland analyseert dit artikel zulke actieve bewoners als brokers: sociaal makela...

This is the introduction to the special issue “Betrayal in the City: Urban Development across the Globe” which analyzes the experiences of people affected by and dealing with betrayal in the face of urban development interventions. Through ethnographies from different continents, it brings together insights into how marginalized people act upon bot...

The workshop will consider the role of brokerage or mediation in operating "grey zones" (Auyero) in governance where regulation is not fully applied or is negotiable, making possible a wide range of practices that include, among many others, informal markets, irregular urban development and organized crime. Speakers in the first panel will address...

This paper approaches the politics of marginalized city residents as an aspirational politics, emerging within the parameters of precariousness. While popular politics tends to be conceptualized as either a force that defies formal politics, or as an informal derivative of the latter, I argue that both views are constricted. The first view focuses...

This paper approaches politics in marginalized urban areas as an aspirational politics, emerging from the parameters of precariousness. While popular politics is often conceptualized as either a force that defies formal politics, or as an informal derivative of the latter, I argue that both views are constricted. The first view focuses on how popul...

To contribute to a better understanding of Brazil's recent rearrangement of political forces, including the election of Bolsonaro, we analyze and compare the ways in which both residents and political candidates imagine politics and the state in Northeast Brazil. In this paper, we build on our long-term research in low-income neighborhoods in two c...

Clientelism is oft en analyzed along lines of moral values and reciprocity or an economic rationality. Th is article, instead, moves beyond this dichot-omy and shows how both frameworks coexist and become entwined. Based on ethnographic research in a city in the Brazilian Northeast, it analyzes how the anti-poverty Bolsa Família Program and its bur...

Call for Papers The first meeting of our EASA Anthropologies of the State network will be held on October 30 - November 1 2019 in Leiden, and focuses on situated genealogies of anthropological thinking about the state. This meeting examines the embeddedness of approaches to the state in particular intellectual and everyday traditions and locations...

Based on qualitative research among female Dutch-Moroccan teenagers in two underprivileged neighborhoods in the city of Utrecht, the Netherlands, this article focuses on the spatial practices of young Muslim women in public space. Compared to their male counterparts, who “hang around” in groups, female teens spend less time in public space. We focu...

Abstract: This introduction to the special issue “Moving Beyond the Formal/Informal Dichotomy: Implications for Governance” provides an overview of recent debates on informality and argues in favour of understanding in/formality as a performance. Although informality and formality are often presented as opposing or even mutually excluding domains o...

Abstract: This article approaches urban governance as an assemblage of formal and informal practices, comprising official procedures and personal favours, of legal frameworks and private arrangements between bureaucrats and residents. Within such assemblages, I show how community leaders of low-income neighbourhoods in the city of Recife, Brazil, o...

The aspirations and practices of the city's marginalized residents often challenge the progressive visions and theories of academics and activists. Residents' indifference towards participation in urban planning projects, their aspirations to become consumers and their support for a rightwing presidential candidate such as Bolsonaro do not sit easi...

Brazilian Politics, Policies and Citizenship: Anthropological Perspectives on Current Challenges 13-15 March 2019, Nijmegen International conference organized by Martijn Koster and Flávio Eiró Anthropology and Development Studies Radboud University, Nijmegen The Netherlands

Across the globe, a growing number of urban dwellers struggle to meet even the most basic needs for housing, security and income. In response, governments showcase programmes like social housing, community policing, cash transfers, or professionalisation training. However, these programmes tend to be palliative, addressing merely the symptoms of in...

Code of Ethics - Dutch Anthropological Association See also: https://antropologen.nl/ethical-guidelines/ In recent years, one of the ambitions of the ABv has been to encourage debate and discussion on the ethics of anthropological research. One way to achieve this has been to organize sessions devoted to ethics, data management and scholarly int...

Lecture at the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE) in Recife, Brazil. This lecture was part of the Mestrado de Desenvolvimento Urbano (MDU) in a course coordinated by Flávio de Souza and Pieter de Vries, October 2018

p>This article shows how regimes of spatial ordering are produced by the entangling of neoliberalism, leftist populism and modernist visions. It focuses on Prometrópole, a slum upgrading project in Recife. In this project, the neoliberal dimension manifests in the idea that the state, private companies and citizens together are responsible for (re)...

Global(izing) Cities: Governance, belonging and violence

Koster, M. & Y.P.B. van Leynseele, eds. (forthcoming, 2018) Assembling development across the globe: ethnographies of brokerage. Special issue of Ethnos 83(5) With an introduction by Martijn Koster & Yves van Leynseele and contributions by - Deborah James, - Johan Lindquist, - Yves van Leynseele - Sabah Chalhi, Martijn Koster & Jeroen Vermeul...

This article shows how regimes of spatial ordering are produced by the entangling of neoliberalism, leftist populism and modernist visions. It focuses on Prometrópole, a slum upgrading project in Recife. In this project, the neoliberal dimension manifests in the idea that the state, private companies and citizens together are responsible for (re)co...

This article demonstrates how youth workers in a Dutch city bring together seemingly irreconcilable worlds: the development policies of their organisations and the state on the one hand and the practices, needs and aspirations of young people on the other. Current policies, like much academic literature on street-level professionals, define youth w...

Brokers as Assemblers: Studying Development Through the Lens of Brokerage Martijn Koster (Radboud University) and Yves van Leynseele (University of Amsterdam) KEYWORDS: Brokerage; development; assemblage; political anthropology; governance; clientelism Brokers have long featured in the anthropological literature as figures that connect disparate...

International workshop 20-21 November 2017

The field of urban governance contains both formal and informal practices. It comprises of official procedures and personal favors, of legal frameworks and private arrangements between bureaucrats and residents. This paper sets out to understand urban governance as a formal/informal assemblage. It ethnographically zooms in on community leaders in t...

In analyses of urban development, the informal often equates to spontaneously grown, messy and dangerous neighbourhoods and the disorderly practices of their residents, while the formal is associated with well-structured planning and administration. Moreover, urban planning literature makes metaphorical use of the Deleuzoguattarian concepts of tree...

Special issue in the Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 37(3). Edited by Monique Nuijten and Martijn Koster Contents: 1.Coproducing urban space: Rethinking the formal/informal dichotomy (pages 282–294), Martijn Koster and Monique Nuijten 2. Participatory slum upgrading as a disjunctive process in Recife, Brazil: Urban coproduction and the ab...

Burgerparticipatie gaat ook op provinciaal niveau een steeds grotere rol spelen. Maar dat is hier een stuk ingewikkelder dan in een gemeente. Het is eenvoudiger burgers het genoegen van een schoon buurtpark te laten inzien dan van dijkversterking.

Participatory urban governance, with its focus on citizen representation and the equitable distribution of resources, has been implemented globally to deepen democracy. Some individuals position themselves as voluntary representatives, or brokers, between the state and their fellow citizens. In this article I analyse the increasingly important and...

Providing an introduction to the special section ‘Close encounters: ethnographies of the coproduction of space by the urban poor’, this article sets out to argue that the image of ‘the informal’ as unruly, messy and dirty continues to inform urban planning around the world. As a reaction to this view, it contends that the informal and formal should...

This entry outlines three aspects of ethnographic research. First, we describe in what way ethnographic research implies a distinct way of knowing. Second, we discuss the use of qualitative methods in ethnographic research. Third, we take up the role of writing, which is both a way of documenting research as well as an analytical tool in the resear...

DE PROVINCIE EN DE BURGER: EEN SPANNEND AVONTUUR? MONITORING EN EVALUATIE PILOTS BURGERPARTICIPATIE, PROVINCIE NOORD-HOLLAND UITGEVOERD DOOR HET DEPARTEMENT BESTUURS- EN ORGANISATIEWETENSCHAP, UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT 09-09-2015 ONDERZOEKSTEAM Martijn Koster Senior onderzoeker en coördinator, Universiteit Utrecht Restlan Aykaç Senior onderzoeker Pro...

This article combines recent conceptualizations of citizenship beyond the nation state with new perspectives on governance assemblages comprising both state and non-state actors. Focusing on Dutch social housing, this study explores how such governance assemblages produce agendas that attempt to shape citizenship. Employing an assemblage approach,...

Introductory article to the Special Issue 'Citizenship Agendas In and Beyond the Nation-State'

In landen als Brazilië en India is informele politiek heel gewoon. Bemiddelaars tussen overheid en burgers spelen er allang een cruciale rol in de samenleving. Voor de transities in onze governance en de nieuwe vormen van burgerparticipatie valt daar zeker wat van te leren.

Special Issue

This article contributes to understanding the material culture of contemporary political practice, especially in a context of large sociopolitical inequality, by focusing on the spatiality and materiality of political brokerage. Its central question is where brokers mediate between different worlds and with what material artifacts. I present the ca...

In Brazil, citizenship rights and the institutionalisation of citizen participation have advancedsignificantly under the democratic regime. However, many of the urban poor are still alienated fromthe state and its legal system. This article argues that, to understand the citizenship of these ‘half-citizens’, it is necessary to take account of an un...

Call for papers

This article discusses ethnographic research on the planned transition from an all-white Dutch management towards an ethnically diverse management of an amateur football club. The article is based on a three-year period of ethnographic fieldwork in a football club, located in an ethnically diverse neighborhood in the Netherlands. We argue that the...

Seminar Utrecht University

This article takes a fresh look at political brokerage as a complex, provisional and contested phenomenon. Although brokerage has received little recent attention, I show how it remainscritical to understanding the urban poor’s involvement in electoral politics. The articlefocuses on how local community leaders in a Recife slum, Brazil, operate as...

This paper shows how regimes of spatial ordering in Brazil are produced by the entangling of neoliberalism, leftist populism and modernist visions. The paper focuses on Prometrópole, a slum upgrading project in Recife funded by the World Bank, which commenced in 2007. In this project, the neoliberal dimension manifests in the idea that the state, p...

This article envisages slum dwellers' politics in Recife, Brazil as a realm of possibility in which care and recognition are central. Community leaders are its main facilitators as articulators of slum dwellers' needs and aspirations. The article's notion of slum politics is an elaboration of Chatterjee's (2004) ideas on popular politics as a "poli...

This article presents an ethnography of the evolution of Prometrópole, a slum upgrading project in the Brazilian city of Recife. The project aims to improve the urban infrastructure, eradicate slums and resettle the population. We focus on the project's first area of intervention, Jacarezinho. We analyze how, from lead-up through implementation, th...

Dit hoofdstuk laat zien waarom de veronderstelde positieve effecten van een gemengde wijk voor jongeren niet opgaan. Dit heeft te maken met hoe zij hun wijk beleven. Kijkend naar de Utrechtse wijk Overvecht wordt getoond dat jongeren trots zijn op hun wijk. De sociale dimensie is hierin van groot belang. Ze vinden hun wijk rustig en gezellig – want...

In de ontmoeting tussen jongeren enerzijds en de gemeente en woningcorporaties anderzijds speelt beeldvorming een belangrijke rol. Dit hoofdstuk laat zien hoe jongeren in sociale woningbouw vaak geen helder beeld hebben van de gemeente en de woningcorporaties. Vervolgens wordt beschreven hoe deze organisaties op hun beurt aandacht besteden aan jeug...

In Nederland is al veel onderzoek gedaan naar de effecten van de wijkaanpak. Vooral de gevolgen van sloop voor verschillende bevolkingsgroepen hebben veel aandacht gekregen. Thema’s die aan de orde zijn gekomen, zijn bijvoorbeeld de tevredenheid van de gebleven bewoners over de aangepakte buurt, tevredenheid over de plek waar verhuisde bewoners ter...

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