Phoenix S. Paz (Colombia)
Universidad de Medellín
Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y Humanas
Phoenix Storm Paz is a historian and social scientist who completed undergraduate studies at Cornell University in 2012, majoring in Spanish and History with minors in Latin American Studies, Latino Studies and American Indian Studies. In 2013, she read for her Master of Science in Migration Studies at the University of Oxford, earning honors on her dissertation. Most recently, Phoenix earned a master's degree in Peace and Conflict Studies at the Universidad de Medellin, graduating in June 2021. She is currently applying for her PhD in Colombian history. At the Ecocity 2022 Conference, Phoenix is presenting on behalf of the Peace and Conflict Studies – Right to the City Research Group. The project is a collaboration between Universidad de Medellin and Universidad de San Buenaventura and uses a multidisciplinary approach combining the theoretical models of sustainability and habitability to define and measure Ecological Urbanism in informal settlements founded by people forcibly displaced by violence. Primary research was conducted La Primavera, an informal settlement founded by internally displaced people in the late 1970s, located in the Corregimiento El Hatillo of Barbosa, Antioquia in northwestern Colombia. The case study highlights the ambiguities of the development agenda in Colombia by showing how development projects designed for the economic betterment and environmental conservation of the region negatively impact the quality of life for the most vulnerable inhabitants and expose them to greater environmental, economic, and social risk. Phoenix is deeply grateful to her collaborators Dr. Paula Andrea Valencia and Diana Valencia for inviting her to participate in the project.

Presenter of 1 Presentation

 Conference Calendar

ECOLOGICAL URBANISM AS A CONDITION FOR URBAN LIFE OF THE INTERNALLY DISPLACED PEOPLE IN COLOMBIA

Session Name
0570 - Pecha Kuchas - Biodiversity 02: Green infrastructure and urban forestry (ID 78)
Session Type
Pecha Kuchas
Date
02/24/2022
Session Time
02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Room

Hall A

Presenter
Lecture Time
02:00 PM - 02:05 PM

Abstract

Abstract Body

For decades, urban and regional planning in Colombia has been characterized by the absence of directives guiding territorial settlement and setting requirements for settlements that are coherent with existent ecological structures, and by the lack of instruments for evaluating the sustainability of new settlements. Furthermore, Colombia is simultaneously characterized by the proliferation of spontaneous informal settlements that are products of high levels of rural-urban migration occasioned by forced displacement due to violence and the limited opportunities available in rural regions.

However, in 2015, the Colombian National Government adopted Objective 11 of United Nation’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development “Sustainable Cities and Communities” into regional planning, requiring that planners and developers include environmental determinants as a primary criterion for the development of a territory for human settlement, attending to the environmental problems that result from the aforementioned spontaneous informal settlement in parallel with assuring the conditions of habitability in the same, responding to a dual agenda of sustainability and habitability.

To achieve the conjunction between sustainability and habitability, the concept of sustainable construction becomes a key factor. However, merely speaking about the basic indicators of architectural habitability is insufficient when considering sustainable construction. The discussion of sustainable construction must also include the analysis of external habitability, understood as the valuation of the environment that supersedes the architectural scale to permit the effective enjoyment of one’s rights.

In this presentation, the authors seek to identify the determinants of the implementation of the paradigm of sustainable construction on the populations of people who have been forcibly displaced by violence and conflict. The study centers on the displaced population of the neighborhood La Primavera, an informal settlement, located in the municipality of Barbosa, Antioquia, Colombia. We conclude that the politics of environmental conservation, in many cases, are at odds with the needs of the affected community, generating a false dichotomy in the face of which sustainable construction, as a planning principle, offers many possible responses to explore.

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