In response to limited and quantified understandings
of informal neighbourhoods, the paper has argued for
different ways of thinking about informal settlements,
which emphasise their fluid, dynamic nature, constituted
by social processes rather than static categorisations.
This relates to the continued gaps in urban theory,
revealing the limits of knowledge about these places,
but also the dominance of certain frameworks and
circuits of knowledge production. This in turn can lead
to ignorance of particular places and processes, or their
stereotyping, with material, often negative effects for
residents. As an analytical lens, place-making emphasises
‘place’ as the site of lived experience, dynamic
change and power. By foregrounding the spatial
element of urban informal settlements, it supports
understanding socio-spatial processes of construction,
as well as how social and spatial processes are related.
As the aggregate of many decisions over time, places
are sites of creative social interaction which constructs
them as meaningful. Processes which occur in and