1. Breanna Faye
Cultural Invention of the Shanty Town
HIS 0443300
01.04.2013
Bridging the Digital Disruption: Technological Impacts on Informal Settlements
The prevalence of informal settlements, also known as slums, within urban populations
throughout the world has suffered from rapidly chaotic growth, becoming increasingly
polarized from the more structured advancement of their surrounding cities. One of the United
Nations eight development goals is “achieve significant improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum
dwellers, by 2020.”
1
Even with the increase in awareness of global poverty as an international
agenda, the deficiency of representation in these settlements continues to create a barrier
between the informal settlement and the informational city it lies within. Sugata Mitra, a
Professor of Educational Technology at the School of Education, Communication and Language
Sciences at Newcastle University, describes informal settlements as “socially and economically
remote from the rest of the city. So it’s us and them.”2
The schism between the slum and the city is constantly being addressed, however the
continual rise of technology in contemporary society has the potential to bridge that gap by
enhancement of self-representation and the inclusion of technology implementation and
1
Warah, Rasna. Divided city: information poverty in Nairobi’s slums. The Communication Initiative Network.2004.
Accessed December 20, 2012 from http://www.comminit.com/en/node/212416.
2
Mitra, Sugata. Sugata Mitra Shows Kids How to Teach Themselves. TED Talk Video. Accessed on December 30,
2012 from http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html.

2. technological pedagogy as an international agenda. Growth of technology outside of informal
settlements only fuels the ‘informational city’, establishing a digital divide, however with the
recent shift towards marketing high-technological devices and infrastructures within low-
income communities, the dissonant divide between city and slum is challenged.
The inclusion of technology as an international agenda for global poverty has the ability
to provide easily accessible forms of education, skills, resources, and healthcare to populations
that lack those resources. “Technology is not only access to the Internet – it is a microfinance,
health, communication and educational tool; moreover, it provides marginalized people living in
slums a way to tell, document and share their stories with others.”3
Not only does technology
provide otherwise unattainable resources to residents of informal settlements, but these types
of low-income communities also have an advantage over more affluent populations when it
comes to technology: while highly developed areas must continually upgrade the technological
systems and infrastructures already established, technologically undeveloped communities can
‘leapfrog’ outdated systems, avoiding the hassle of retrofitting the new system as well as
replacing the old, saving time and resources and making entire installation process more cost-
effective.4
Informal settlements experience many barriers in language, education, and
infrastructure, making them susceptible to underdevelopment in the informational and digital
3
Gillette, Eileen, Linda Ham and Daniel Pringle. Technology as Development Tool. Slums: Bridging the Digital
Divide. Accessed on December 20, 2012 from http://techslums.wordpress.com/.
4
Brynjolfsson, Erik and Brian Kahin. Understand the Digital Economy: Data, Tools and Research. 2000. MIT Press,
Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England.

3. economy. The sheer fact that there are little resources available allowing ‘leapfrog’ progress
makes them the ideal target for intervention, as well as their location to megacities of the
world. The large concentration of slum residents in a confined location as well as their
proximity to city infrastructures such as electricity, internet accessibility, and telephone lines,
“makes them an ideal target for ICT (information and communication technology) development
initiatives.”5
IMAGE ISOLATIONISM: CONCEALING THE SLUM AESTHETIC
Throughout history, the existence of informal settlements in many countries has been
never officially recognized by local authorities and national governments. The absence of
reliable data on these settlements is often due to the governments and cities’ desire to uphold
a reputable image, therefore there isn’t a large effort made to recognize the vast amount of
populations living in overcrowded slum-like conditions. In contemporary society, globalization
only tends to increase this desire as technology provides the resources for a more
interconnected world, exposing harsh realities once concealed behind the façade of a
respectable metropolis. Technology also creates an opportunity for the reversed situation as
well, providing media and a means of representation to populations that were once segregated
and allowing them to become integrated with a universal society.
5
Warah, Rasna. Divided city: information poverty in Nairobi’s slums. The Communication Initiative Network.2004.
Accessed December 20, 2012 from http://www.comminit.com/en/node/212416.

4. Numerous independent research projects have been established in order to uncover
many of the harsh realities that these cities and governments have tried to conceal over time.
These independent projects create the potential for development and growth of the
settlements with the aid of advances in technology. Map-making is a one example of how to
visually express and keep record of the type of developments and populations that informal
settlement contain. The lack of representation for these settlements on official maps prevents
acknowledgment of the communities, and only encourages national government to discount
the unrecognized populations, as well as continues to disregard problems with infrastructure,
poverty, education, and sanitation within the slums.
The areas where informal settlements are located are often left as open spaces or
labeled as national parks on city maps. Official maps of Nairobi, Kenya have continued to not
represent the slum neighborhoods on its map. Kibera, the largest slum in Nairobi and one of
the largest in Africa, spreads across 550 acres of government-owned land 5 kilometers
southwest of the center of the city. The large informal settlement was represented as a blank
spot and labeled as a national park on official city maps of Nairobi until November 2009, when
young Kiberans partnered with an independent organization and established the first “free and
open digital map” of their community.6
6
Mission Statement. Map Kibera Project. May 2008. Accessed on December 02, 2012 from
http://mapkiberaproject.yolasite.com/

5. City map of Nairobi highlighting Kibera, depicted as an open, undeveloped void.
The independent international team started the online map system by informational
gathering and sharing with local residents, calling it the Map Kibera Project, and is using its
efforts to collect and produce reliable data in order to create the virtual maps that represent
the “physical and socio-demographic features of the Kibera-slum”7
, publishing the data on
digital geo-referenced data base (GIS software) that is accessible as public records. The
residents of Kibera, working alongside Map Kibera members and local organizations such as the
7
Mission Statement. Map Kibera Project. May 2008 Accessed on December 02, 2012 from
http://mapkiberaproject.yolasite.com/.

6. Social Development Network (SODNET), Carolina for Kibera, and the Kibera Community
Development Agenda (KCODA), were trained in mapping procedures and software technologies
to help create the first online, public map of Kibera. Independent teams and residents also
work alongside non-governmental organizations (NGOs), local governments, and financial
institutions for addressing issues of poverty, sanitation, and infrastructure.8
This cooperation
among different groups, government, and members of the community raises awareness,
gathers and publishes data for the public, as well as encourages involvement from local
residents of the slums, providing a foundation for further participation of the community it
serves.
Two scales of Kibera from Open Street Map showing the level of detail in mappings.
The map created with the help Kibera residents and the local organizations is available
on Open Street Map (OSM), a ‘volunteer global mapping project…based on the premise that
crowd sourced information is more current and reliable that traditional means of collecting
8
WaterAid. Community Mapping: A Tool for Community Organising. 2005. London: Prince Consort House.

7. information.”9
Features they mapped included physical and structural elements such as
topography, households, businesses, and school, and socio-demographic features such as
population division by age and gender. The interface system designed through Open Street
Map also allows this information to be easily accessible by a vast database of online users,
reaching a larger audience to expose the realities of living conditions in Kibera. The Map Kibera
information database is accessed frequently and additional data is recorded and updated
several times each day.
Image from Open Street Map showing recent additions to the map.
Recording the population and demographic of Kibera is just as vital to understanding its
importance in the city of Nairobi as mapping its physical features. From the data collected by
Stefano Marras in his field survey of the Kianda region of the Kibera slum, the population of
Kibera is estimated between 235,000 and 270,000 inhabitants. This number was taken by
9
Hagen, Erica. Putting Nairobi’s Slums on the Map. Accessed on December 6, 2012 from
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/WBI/Resources/213798-
1278955272198/Putting_Nairobi_Slums_on_the_Map.pdf

8. multiplying the population density found in Kianda (95,120 people per square kilometer) for the
area of Kibera (2.3-2.5 square kilometers), while taking into account an estimated error of 7%.10
This number, even as an estimate, is drastically lower than the population numbers and
statistics suggested by media, scholars in the field of global poverty, and the government of
Kenya itself, sometimes boasting Kibera’s population to be over 700,000.11
Exeraggeration of population is one form of persausively arguing on behalf of
government, ngos, or other groups for their particular interests in order to take action. Inflating
the population presents a false representation of informal settlements and emphasizes the
dramaticization of slum conditions. Not only is it common in media for rendering a more
dramatic image, scholars in the field often vicitimze the slum inhabitants or the urban
population to provide further persuasion to their argument. Residents of Kibera also contribute
to false representation, hoping to financially benefit from the publicity of being presented with
the title, ‘the largest slum in Africa.’12
Particular companies, politicians, NGOs, and even the Kibera residents themselves have
an interest in inflating the numbers, not only for a kind of prestige derived from the fact of
living or operating in a slum with a ‘record population’, but also because high numbers attract
attention and funding. Furthermore, the local and international media willingly participates in
10
Marras, Stefano “Mapping the Unmapped,” http://www.afronline.org/wp-
content/uploads/2009/06/kibera_mapping_the_unmapped.pdf
11
Caprio, Chiara. Kibera: Mapping the Unmapped. Renato Kizito Sesana – News from Africa Vita Comunicazione
società cooperativa sociale, 2011. Accessed on December 9, 2012 from http://www.afronline.org/?p=319.
12
Caprio, Chiara. Kibera: Mapping the Unmapped. Renato Kizito Sesana – News from Africa Vita Comunicazione
società cooperativa sociale, 2011. Accessed on December 9, 2012 from http://www.afronline.org/?p=319.

9. dramatizing situations for emotional persuasion and often exerts little effort in expressing
serious verification of information. Population inflation and other exagerrations or inaccuracies
lead to falsely representing slum issues and negative depictions of the living conditions, which
can result in leading city officials and NGOs astray from actual problems within the
communties.
Google satellite image of Kibera, accurately representing the informal settlement as a thriving
development within the city of Nairobi.
Through the growth of technology and the increasing amount of globalization, the
attention to informal settlements has shifted and become a global initiative to improve living
standards in slums throughout the world. In 1996 the Government of Kenya halted their slum
demolition efforts and by 2000 the amount of slum demolitions and evictions within the city

10. drastically decreased, mostly as a result of international pressures for the Kenyan government
to adopt pro-poor policies. The inclusion of sustainable progress and local, technologically-
appropriate development on the Global Summit initiative list for 2020 shows the high priority of
technological advancement and the empowerment of “all sectors of society” as an international
objective, recognizing the important role technology plays towards improving conditions of the
slums13
.
ENTREPRENRIAL EXPLOITATION: REVEALING THE REALITIES OF THE INFORMAL
Advancement of technology has created a network of informational cities around the
world. Distance is no longer a barrier for obtaining real-time updates, both on a local and global
level. This new-found ease of interconnectedness has spurred an immense interest in ‘reality
tours’, a tour that provides a peek into the ‘real’ culture and way of living in within a particular
community or group. Conceptualization of the slum is becoming a new fashionable utopianism:
an illusory, degrading depiction of the harsh realities of the urban poor. The age of technology
and increasing globalization has generated an extreme lust for worldwide realities, including
exploitation of the entireties; from the chateaus of France to the slums of Kenya. Slum tours are
beginning to create a new form of recreation, with the participation of the ‘eye-opening’
experience being termed a new sport labeled ‘slumming’. This recreational and controversial
epidemic only adds to the reformation of political awareness: it is a business model that relies
13
About the Global Summit. The Global Summit c/o Empowerment Works. San Francisco, CA. Accessed on
December 9, 2012 from http://www.theglobalsummit.org/about-us/.

11. on the conditions of the slums to remain. This increases the political awareness, however
prevents the actual conditions from improving and only gives indignification to the residents of
these slums. Tourists are unintentionally exhausting the commodities of the poor,
the underprivileged, and the helpless.
Through mass representation and media coverage, the informal settlement has
transitioned from a ruptured sector of the city to its own icon of inhabitation. In some ways,
informal settlements have surpassed the glamour and interest of the city that contains them,
offering visitors a unique view into an entirely dissimilar civilization. Representations are
dramatized, not for previously recognized reasons of distressing the bourgeois, calling attention
to national and local governments, or raising awareness for an international agenda, but for
pure entrepreneurial exploitation for touristic and entertainment industries.
Slum tourism thrives on entrepreneurship, cognizance, and the progression of media
and advertising, all of which are rooted in the technology continuum that allows for populations
worldwide to experience the slum. One organization that profits from the ‘slumming’ industry is
the Kibera-based Dutch-Kenya organization called “Kibera Tours”. Kibera Tours boasts to
supporting the local economy and seeks to showcase the resilience and friendliness of daily life
in the informal settlement.14
The tour costs 2500 Ksh p.p. (approximately $29.00 USD) and
includes visits to a local orphanage, bead factory, typical houses, and the local Biogas Center,
which has similar prices and included “attractions” of other slum tour organizations in both
India and Brazil. One slum tour organization in Rio de Janiero, Brazil even exploits children that
14
Kibera: The Friendliest Slum in the World. Accessed on November 24, 2012 from
http://kiberatours.com/page/kibera-slum-tour-nairobi.

12. are residents of a local slum to act as the tour guides for the organization on a walking tour that
last three hours on average.15
A picture taken during a slum tour (left) and the adolescent tour guides of
the Rocinha Favela Tour in Rio De Janiero, Brazil (right).
Although various slum tour organizations claim to contribute to the local, normally
confined economy of the slums, the intent of aiding the communities is paradoxically inclined –
in actuality, if slum tourism enhances the economy the slum tourism industry will internally
collapse from the changing (more so, improving) conditions of the slums. This would ultimately
cause the slum tourism industry to collapse upon itself. The adverse effect created from
poverty entertainment is also a factor that heavily outweighs the minor economic benefits. The
personal account of a slum tour from the perspective of the slum inhabitant offers the
psychological impacts of slumming as a recreational activity:
15
Rocinha Favela Tourim Workshop, by Exotic Tours: Brasil. Operadora de Turismo Receptivo. Accessed on
December 10, 2012 from http://www.exotictours.com.br/favela.htm.

13. “I was sixteen when I first saw a slum tour. I was outside my 100-square-foot
house washing dishes, looking at utensils with longing because I hadn’t eaten in
two days. Suddenly a white woman was taking my picture. I felt like a tiger in a
cage. Before I could say anything, she had moved on.”16
The slum tourism industry will continue to flourish with the technological advancement
and revealing nature of satellite imagery. The Daily Planet layer in Google Earth, developed by
NASA, provides imagery taken from the MODIS Terra satellite processed at near-real-time
(between 6 and 12 hours old)17
. This technology is the most recent and highest resolution
imagery of the Earth that continuously updates available to the general public, and would allow
for current updates in order to monitor the constantly changing conditions of informal
settlements. Inclusion of additional applications, such as the historical imagery feature that
allows access to satellite imagery available over an extended period of time, will only further
the development and data made available regarding informal settlements. The combination of
near-real-time and historical satellite imagery aids in the understanding of informal settlements
over time.
16
Odede, Kennedy. Slumdog Tourism. New York Times Op Ed. August 9, 2010.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/opinion/10odede.html
17
Taylor, Frank. About Google Earth Imagery. February 8, 2008.
http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2008/02/about_google_earth_imagery.html

14. The continuance of technological advances in satellite imagery will on further expose
realities of slum conditions throughout the world. Locations and boundaries become more
distinct, and transitions and updates in real-time deliver more accurate depictions of the
constantly changing slum conditions. The continually-improving technology provides the media
with the opportunity to pursue further exploitation of informal settlement conditions, revealing
realities that were once captive in governmental possession to the masses of the public domain
through advancing technologies that are globally interconnected via cell phones and personal
computers.
EDUCATION: TECHNOLOGY AS APPARATUS FOR DEVELOPMENT
“Poverty and social inequality can develop, directly through the cyber world,
without the intermediaries of governmental or traditional political processes.”18
The Hole in the Wall Project, started by Dr. Sugata Mitra in 1999, tested the impacts of
technology and its relation to education when exposed to children of particular slums in rural
and urban India. Mitra proposed that advanced educational technologies should be
implemented in a bottom-up strategy, arguing that targeting communities with the least
amount of resources will show the most amount of improvement. The project began by
inserting a personal computer system with access to the internet into a wall that bordered a
New Delhi slum, and left it to see how it would be received in the community. The results from
18
Mitchell, William J, Bish Sanyal and Donald A. Schon. High Technology and Low-Income Communities: Prospects
for the Positive Use of Advanced Information Technology.

15. multiple locations tested revealed that children from the slums gathered in groups surrounding
the computer, and within a matter of hours would transition from never using a computer to
understanding how to use a mouse, change browsers, and surf the internet intuitively, teaching
each other along the way. Mitra repeated the experiment in a series of urban slums and rural
villages over the next five years, finding similar results each time.
Children from the New Delhi slum operating the computer installed by Sugata Mitra.
“A teacher that can be replaced by a machine, should be.” – Sir Arthur C. Clarke
The experiments demonstrated that “children in groups can self-instruct themselves”19
to properly operate advanced technologies without previous experience. In one rural village,
Mitra returned to find that the children taught themselves to speak ‘computer-related’ English
from the manuals he left alongside the PC. Although results expected to find children learning
19
Mitra, Sugata. Sugata Mitra Shows Kids How to Teach Themselves. TED Talk Video. Accessed on December 30,
2012 from http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html.

16. computer skills, they inadvertently learned cultural, linguistic, and educational techniques in
the process, not to mention the plethora of information exposure they obtained from the
connection to the internet. The project created an “educational technology and pedagogy that
is digital, automatic, fault-tolerant, minimally invasive, connected and self-organized,”20
a self-
sufficient education system for informal settlements where infrastructures and resources make
education challenging, lacking or non-existent for children of the slums.
MEDIA ENTRENEUERISM: THE TECHNOLOGICAL MEDIUM
Modern technology does not just exist in developed civilization acting as a scope in
which to view informal settlements; it is integrated into the economic and cultural fabric of
informal settlements. Similar to other informal settlements in developing countries, the
economy of Kibera thrives on micro-scale enterprises, many of which have a focus of on a
technology that is well-known to developed nations: the mobile cellular phone. Developing
countries are constantly increasing the number of mobile subscriptions. The
Telecommunication Union (ITU) found that “developing countries have increased their share of
the world’s total number of Internet users from 44% in 2006 to 62% in 2011”, only estimating
further growth due to developed countries reaching ‘subscription saturation’.21
One of the most lucrative micro-businesses in Kibera focuses on providing mobile phone
services, such as charging stations and the sale of pre-paid cellular devices. Even with
20
Ibid.
21
ITU Telecom World. The World in 2011: ICT Facts and Figures. Accessed on December 31, 2012 from
http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/facts/2011/material/ICTFactsFigures2011.pdf.

17. community members living in traditional slums with buildings made from mud and corrugated
steel sheets, access to satellite television, mobile phone networks, and high-speed internet is
still attainable. In Dadaab, the largest refugee camp in the world with similar conditions to
Kibera, many residents suffer from inadequate health care, unhygienic sanitation conditions,
and malnutrition, yet approximately 60 percent of inhabitants own cell phones.22
The residents
of informal settlements, many without access to clean water, sanitation, or electricity, are
internationally transitioning to be techni-capable societies themselves, sacrificing a few meals
for the opportunity of being technologically connected through Internet services and mobile
phones.
Villagers taking pictures with a cell phone (left) and a vendor in Kibera selling mobile phones (right).
22
Deneen, Sally. Cell Phones in the Slums. Success Magazine, 1993. Accessed on November 24, 2012 from
http://www.success.com/articles/1993---mobilize.

18. As a result of the increasing technology within developing nations and informal
settlements, technology has the opportunity to enhance the quality of life in health as well as
economy. The EyeNETRA is an affordable technology designed in coordination with establishing
a new platform for eye care that offers high quality eyesight measuring tool that is accessible in
any location. 23
The main targeted population is from developing countries such as India. Born
out of MIT’s Media Lab, the company designed a technological device that can quickly and
efficiently measure for nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism on a mobile smart
phone.24
Small-scale advanced technologies like EyeNetra can disrupt current systems and
provide healthcare at low cost, and informal settlements are the target population to benefit
economically and health-wise from its realization. With the integration of these advanced
technologies into the system of the slum, the schism between the informal settlement and the
formalized city that surrounds it is subdued.
Images showing the process of measuring eyesight from the EyeNetra mobile smart-phone device.
23
Schafran, David. Eyeing the Future of Healthcare. Accessed on November 23, 2012 from http://eyeNETRA.com
24
Raskar, Ramesh and MIT Media Lab Camera Culture team members. NETRA: Refractive Tests on a Mobile Phone.
Accessed on November 23, 2012 from http://web.media.mit.edu/~pamplona/NETRA/.

19. The media has been using technology as a source for exploitation of the informal
settlements throughout history. Whether the attitude is positively or negatively in relation to
slums, the media sensationalizes the settlements to accentuate the variances between the
informal and the formal divisions. With the increase in a global society to accept pro-poor
sentiments, patronizing the inhabitants of informal settlements has lessened over time as it is
culturally unacceptable to degrade populations. The New York Times in 1854 referred to
informal settlement residents as ‘squatters’ that are a “terror and a scourge, …an additional
reason to pity the rich.”25
This commentary from the media was a common depiction of the
urban poor, and the “newspaper influences on public opinion was widely noted.” Historically
the media was more openly forthright about flaunting its persuasive views.
Self-representation has continued to be an issue with informal settlements over time.
Authorship of informal settlement representation is typically constructed from the outsider’s
perspective, whether presenting positive or negative opinion on conditions. Due to the lack of
technology, education, and global awareness, the limited access to self-representation does not
compare to that of the outsider’s counter perspective.26
The absence of expression from
informal settlements only exaggerates the divide between the city and slum, however with the
25
Neuwirth, Robert. Shadow Cities. Squatters in New York: Page 223, Chapter 6.
26
Mayne, Alan. The Imagined Slum: Newspaper Representation in Three Cities, 1870-1914. Page 7.

20. advancement of technology in the confines of the informal settlement the voice of the slums is
increasingly heard. 27
Technology is an apparatus for shrinking the schsim between the informal settlements
and the formalized city. When used as a scope from which to theorize and evaluate informal
developments, technology furthers the divide. The media exploits the capacities of technology
to increasingly sensationalize the slums, allowing ‘entertainment’, whether viewed as immoral
or beneficial, to characterizethe conditions and further divide the technological, infrastrucutral,
social , and economic wall that separates the slums from the formalized cities they reside in.
The social and economic schism between the two cities is being challenged by advancement of
technology, and although the gap will not be eliminated with this advancement, a technological
bridge is connecting the two vastly different worlds.
27
Skinner, Andrew M. The Impact of Technology on the Media Industry.
http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~nhn/G53DDB/LectureNotes-2007/lecture06-AndrewSkinner.pdf