A developing Mexico City for social inclusion

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A Developing

Mexico City for

Social Inclusion

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MSc International Development Studies 2018-19 Graduate

School of Social Sciences

Jan Milton Bayón Valentín Alexander Bayón Valentín

1286400

July 1, 2019

Supervisor: Prof. Courtney Vegelin

Second Reader: Dr. Enrique Gómez

A Developing Mexico

City for Social Inclusion

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Abstract

As social exclusion and inequality rise in Mexico City and government fails to deliver adequate attention to the socially excluded, Mexico City residents are getting exhausted of the city’s exclusionary policies and are organizing themselves to carrying out a series of projects and programs at a community level to improve their well-being and reduce the inequality that perpetuates their social exclusion. But this programs and projects if not structured under the proper social inclusive development design might not be successful.

This thesis argues that in order to successfully achieve social inclusion, five aspects must be met: 1) social vulnerability protection, 2) a policy of participation, 3) improvement in the provision of services, 4) equal market participation, and 5) protection and promotion of human rights. Scholars usually treat inclusive development as a whole and how it reduces exclusion. But there is little literature on how social inclusion can be achieved on its own.

This thesis explores the concept of social inclusion and looks at how community-level projects and programs can contribute to its fulfillment. Through a qualitative research with a triangulation method, this thesis looks into data gathered from participant observations, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis taken from six community-level organizations in Mexico City. It concludes that although social inclusion has not been achieved, these community-level programs and projects are contributing to social inclusion in Mexico City through the five aspects of social inclusion design.

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Agradecimientos

Esta tesis va dedicada a todos aquellos que de una forma u otra me han ayudado en el desarrollo de mi investigación y de mi tesis y a los residentes y comunidades marginadas de Ciudad de México; que esta tesis sirva de modelo y guía para el mejoramiento de su calidad de vida y resulte en una mayor inclusión social.

Quiero empezar por agradecer a mi supervisora, Courtney Vegelin, por su mentoría, paciencia e incondicional apoyo; a mi segundo lector, Enrique Gómez, por sacar de su tiempo para leer y evaluar este trabajo; y a mi familia, que, sin estar físicamente presente, me ha brindado todo el apoyo emocional requerido para terminar este trabajo.

Gracias a quienes en Ciudad de México brindaron de su tiempo para ayudarme en el proceso de investigación, a todas las organizaciones que me acogieron y a todo su emprendedor equipo por mostrarme el incesante trabajo y compromiso que tienen con los residentes de la ciudad. En especial, gracias a la Profesora Juana Martínez Reséndiz y al Licenciado Daniel Alavez Navarrete, porque sin ellos estaría todavía perdido en Ciudad de México y sin dirección alguna para mi investigación; gracias por haber respondido a ese correo electrónico de parte un desconocido que pedía ayuda. Por último, pero no menos importante, quiero agradecer a quienes en Ciudad de México me recibieron y me obsequiaron su amistad, me adoptaron como parte de su familia e hicieron que la experiencia fuera mucho más que una investigación. Gracias por hacerme sentir como en casa.

Acknowledgements

This thesis goes to all the people that, one way or another, helped me with the realization of my research and thesis and to the residents and marginalized communities of Mexico City; I hope that this thesis serves as a model and guide for the improvement of their well-being and results in a better social inclusion for them.

I want to start thanking my supervisor, Courtney Vegelin, for her mentoring, patience, and unconditional support; my second reader, Enrique Gómez, for taking the time to read and evaluate this work; and to my family, who without being physically present, have given me all the emotional support I needed to finish this thesis.

Thanks to the people in Mexico City that took the time to help me in the research process, to all the organizations that opened their doors to me and to their innovative staff for showing me the non-stop work and commitment they have with the city’s residents. Specially, thanks to professors Juana Martínez Reséndiz and Daniel Alavez Navarrete because without them I would still be lost in Mexico City and without any guidance for my research; thanks for replying to that distress email from an unknown sender.

Lastly, I want to thank those who received me with their arms wide open, gifted mi with their friendship, and made me part of their family in Mexico City. Thanks for making of this experience something more than just a research and thanks for making me feel like at home.

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I. Introduction

As the world’s urban population is expected to nearly double by 20501_{, the world}

is witnessing a process of rapid urban concentration leading to the growth of megacities characterized by overcrowding. These megacities can sometimes make up more than 80% of an entire country's population (García-Ayllón, 2016). The majority of this rapid growth is occurring in the developing countries of Asia, Africa, and in Latin America (Ward, 2015), where cities of all sizes are not able to cope with this rapid expansion. This forces a large proportion of cities’ populations to be pushed to the peripheries of the cities, leaving them in a situation of exclusion. This creates a set of challenges for them in terms of housing, infrastructure, public spaces, basic services, education, health, food security, safety, decent jobs, risks of natural disasters, and economic crisis. The number of marginalized communities that struggle everyday with these challenges are on the rise and government inaction and exclusive development practices are aggravating the situation.

To fight these challenges, community-level organizations within these cities are carrying out development programs and projects that are expected to reduce inequality, vulnerability, and marginalization in these communities. But if these projects leave aside the needs and interests of their recipient communities and its residents, they may also end worsening the community’s conditions. This thesis argues that in order to avoid this, a socially inclusive development approach must be carried out for inequality, marginalization, and exclusion to be successfully reduced. This thesis will demonstrate that a social inclusive development approach ensures that the recipients’ reality and needs are taken into account when designing development practices for marginalized communities.

However, the term ‘social inclusive development’ is relatively new in development studies and there is currently little literature on how the social aspect of inclusive development can be applied in an urban and in a peri-urban context. Additionally, during the process of research it became clear that community-level organizations do not tend to be aware of this concept. This can be counterproductive to their work as they may be applying the wrong practices in their efforts to improve the development and well-being of marginalized communities. In order to provide a

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framework for how they can help marginalized communities achieve social inclusion, this thesis intends to look into how six organizations’ work and their community-level projects and programs contribute to the social inclusion of their recipients. The idea is to generate knowledge on how the impact of these organizations can result in the social inclusion of marginalized communities in cities with high inequality. In order to do this, Mexico City was selected as a case study of a highly populated city with increasing inequality. This thesis will answer the main research question: How are

development projects and programs at a community level contributing to social inclusion in Mexico City?

To provide an answer to the main research question, this thesis selects a series of development programs and projects at a community level and looks for shared practices among them. This will help to answer the first research sub-question: Are

there any social inclusion trends among the development projects and programs of Mexico City? After looking into the organizations’ work, their projects

and programs, and the existing trends, this thesis will answer a second research sub-question: What outcomes have been obtained so far in terms of social inclusion? The objective of this question is to know if their work is in fact contributing to the social inclusion of their recipients and how social inclusion is being achieved in Mexico City. This thesis concludes that community-level development programs and projects are contributing to the social inclusion of Mexico City by targeting one or more of five aspects of inclusive development (these aspects will be presented in the theoretical chapter) , that there are four trends that drive social inclusive development in Mexico City (which will be presented and discussed in later chapters) and although some socially inclusive outcomes have been experienced so far in the studied communities, social inclusion has not been achieved yet.

The structure of the thesis is as follows: it starts with a theory chapter where the major concepts of social inclusive development are defined and explained in detail. It proceeds with a methodology chapter where the structure and procedures of the research are discussed. This is followed by a context chapter, where a general overview on social exclusion in today’s Mexico City is presented, followed by a description of the roles the studied organizations have in fighting this exclusion. The next chapter is a thorough description, based on the data collected, of what are organizations doing in their recipient communities to achieve social inclusion. Then a discussion chapter is devoted to analyzing the data and answering the research

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questions. Lastly, a concluding chapter gives closure to the thesis and research and presents recommendations for policy and further research.

II. Theoretical Framework

This chapter contains a detailed discussion of the literature addressing the concept of inclusive development. From the inclusive development framework, the main focus of this research, social inclusion, is extracted. Drawn from the literature, this chapter presents five aspects that comprise social inclusive development, and which lay the foundation of the research design. This chapter contains an elaborate description, definition, and operationalization of the five aspects of social inclusion and the traits that characterize them.

1. Inclusive development

Gumede (2018) defines inclusive development as the social and economic inclusion of the excluded individuals and groups in development initiatives where they can create and recreate themselves and their life circumstances to attain higher levels of well-being in accordance with their own choices and values. For Sachs (2004), inclusive development is the opposition to the traditional pattern of development growth based on labor and consumer markets. It strives to improve participation and decrease the exclusion of marginalized and poor sectors from the political life of a country. Rauniyar and Kanbur (2010) add that this form of development proposed by Sachs comes along with equal opportunities for these excluded sectors of society. These opportunities may only be attained through examining marginalized and informal sectors and areas, especially those in the rural and peri-urban areas (Gupta, 2014).

Inclusive development is a complex and diverse term. Between scholars, there is not much of a consensus on the subdivisions that compose its nature, but they all seem to agree that it surely includes a social component. For Sachs (2004), there are three branches for inclusive development: civil, political, and civic. Each of them holds rights and responsibilities for citizens as well as governments. This contrasts with Rauniyar and Kunbar (2010) who define inclusive development as composed of three different subdivisions: economic, which focuses on sustainable and equitable growth; institutional, which focuses on the legal identity of State actors and its citizens; and

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social, which focuses on social protection for the marginalized. In a more similar approach, Gumede (2018) states that inclusive development is composed of economic inclusion and social inclusion but adopts an instrumental method by expressing them as different types of policy (social and economic policy). The case is different for Gupta and Vegelin (2015) as they look into these previous scholars’ connotations of inclusive development and proceed to design a tridimensional concept of inclusive development which later Pouw (2017) adopts. They divide inclusive development into three broad scopes: ecological inclusiveness, which focuses on the protection and management of ecosystems and their access to them; relational inclusiveness, which focuses on the governmentality and legality of inequality driving actors; and social inclusiveness, which focuses on the empowerment and participation of the marginalized in society.

As it can be appreciated above, scholars share the same view that a social inclusive aspect is embedded in the inclusive development term. But the dimensions that form social inclusion vary in accordance to the literature. As this thesis has its focus on social inclusion, the sections below will elaborate on the term of social inclusive development and the views different scholars on what comprises it. But in order to talk about social inclusion, we must answer who are being socially excluded. This next section discusses the term social exclusion and paves the way for the discussion on social inclusion.

2. Social Exclusion

The literature agrees that inclusive development is focused on the inclusion of the excluded or marginalized. The marginalized are individuals who are excluded from participation in the social life of the community (Wong, 2005). Their ranks include the poor (Sen, 2000; Wong, 2005), the indigenous (Gupta, 2014), the disabled, (Wong, 2005; Hickey, Sen, and Bukenya, 2015), ethnic minorities, children, and women (Rauniyar and Kanbur, 2010). Silver (1994) defines exclusion as the breakdown of a social bond between the individual and society that is cultural and moral, rather than economically interested. She focuses on a social aspect of the exclusionary process and suggests that it is a consequence of the formation of powerful groups that often display cultural identities and institutions that restrict the access of "outsiders" to valued resources. Social exclusion always involves deprivation; and its versatility allows it to arise in a variety of ways (Sen, 2000). For Sen, there are two general ways

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of social exclusion: active and passive. The former is caused by deliberate actions and policies whose purpose is to result in some form of exclusion for a portion of the population or a community. The latter is caused by actions and policies that due to collateral damages have laid aside a portion of the population or a community resulting in some form of exclusion. Although the literature provides a variety of possible solutions in which this can be overcome, they all promote a form of social inclusion which is one of three aspects designed by Gupta and Vegelin (2016) in their conceptualization of inclusive development

3. Social inclusion

Social inclusion aims at empowering the poorest through investing in human capital and enhancing the opportunities for participation (Gupta and Vegelin, 2016). It supports the social development and inclusion of the marginalized communities, vulnerable sectors, and minorities. It addresses inequality through inclusion (Rauniyar and Kanbur, 2010) and targets social indicators that drive poverty and put into risk the marginalized, excluded, and disadvantaged. Social inclusive development is about eliminating exclusion (Sachs, 2004) through a development approach that takes into consideration age, gender, minorities, and indigenous communities. It strives to enhance human wellbeing in accordance with people's own priorities (Gupta and Pouw, 2017). This dimension of inclusive development must empower the people to actively participate in society (Gumede, 2018), protect them from all sorts of risks, and protect their rights (Rauniyar and Kanbur, 2010).

The components that comprise social inclusion, also vary in the literature. For Gupta and Vegelin (2010), social inclusive development has five key principles: it adopts equity principles to share in development opportunities and benefits; includes the knowledge of the marginalized when defining development processes and goals; ensures a social minimum through a higher level of protection for the most marginalized; targets capacity building to help the poor benefit from opportunities; and engages the marginalized in the politics of development governance. In a less technical approach, Rauniyar and Kanbur (2010) designate four social aspects of inclusive development that are broader and more theoretical concepts: human capital development, social capital development, gender and development, and social protection. Each concept is aimed at reducing poverty and inequality. For Gupta and

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Pouw (2017), there are six key elements for social inclusiveness: it must enhance human well-being according to people's own priorities and empower them with a rights-based approach; allocate resources, responsibilities, and risks of socio-economic resources in a non-discriminatory manner; stimulate a strong and accountable state capable of independent regulation and the provision of public and merit goods; provide access to finance, insurance, and markets for the poor as producers, distributors, suppliers, and consumers in an equitable manner; focus on macro-inclusive wealth, which goes bottom-up; and promote critical approaches to education for sustainable development, rather than instrumentalism and mainstreaming. These six elements do not contradict nor are mutually exclusive with Gupta and Vegelin’s five principles or Rauniyar and Kanbur’s four concepts. On the contrary, they are complimentary. For example, Gupta and Pouw leave out participation in decision-making, which Gupta and Vegelin do mention; but they include finance and market inclusion while Rauniyar and Kanbur include gender as a core element.

Since scholar's view on social inclusion varies from one another and this thesis aims to study and analyze how are the projects and programs in Mexico City contributing to the social inclusion of its residents, there is a need to revise what scholar’s say comprises social inclusion and develop a more elaborated interpretation of the concept for the purpose of this thesis. Responding to the richness and diversity of the literature previously discussed, I have come up with five major concepts that constitute the social aspect of inclusive development. The first of the components is Provision of Services and comes from Sachs (2004), Rauniyar and Kambur (2010), Cook (2016), Gupta and Pouw (2017), and Gumede (2018) who agree that a social inclusiveness approach to development must ensure an adequate provision of social and public services like water, health, and education. The second one is Policy of Participation and comes from Rauniyar and Kanbur (2010) and Gupta and Vegelin (2016) who advocate for a social development approach that engages the marginalized in the decision-making process, politics of governance, and includes their knowledge and interests in the development process. The third one, Equal Market Participation, comes from Gupta and Vegelin (2016), Sachs (2004), and Gupta and Pouw (2017). This is the notion of a more economic social inclusive development where the marginalized engage and participate in labor and consumption markets as producers, suppliers, and consumers in an equitable way. The fourth component is

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Social Vulnerability Protection. Drawn from Gupta and Vegelin (2016), Gumede (2018), Sachs (2004), Rauniyar and Kanbur (2010), and Gupta and Pouw (2017), this aspect involves social protection of the most vulnerable groups and individuals from risks in a non-discriminatory manner. The fifth and last component is a Human Rights-based Approach that emerges from Gupta and Pouw (2017), Sachs (2004), and Gupta and Vegelin (2016), who state that social inclusiveness must enhance human well-being and promote equality by ensuring the protection of human rights.

The five components of social inclusive development are already defined and introduced above, but a complete study on social inclusion would require a more thorough literature review on each of these five aspects. These next sections are aimed to further develop the notion of social inclusive development by breaking down the five concepts that comprise it. Because this thesis aims to look at community-level projects and programs’ contribution to social inclusion in Mexico City. These next sections also discuss how these five aspects should be present in these development projects and programs.

4. Provision of Services

Individuals who experience social exclusion are characterized by experiencing underachievement in education (Crane et al. 2010), poor access to services (Saul et al. 2014), and higher levels of health illnesses (Hickey et al., 2015). Marginalized communities are being deprived of basic services like education, health, transportation, and utilities. The social inclusion of these communities would thus require an improvement in the provision of these services. Social inclusive development must intervene in education, health, and other social services such as water and sanitation, to expand human capacities especially for the disadvantaged (Rauniyar and Kanbur, 2010; Hickey, et. al., 2015; Gupta and Pouw 2017). The major services which cities provide include transport networks, water and sanitation connections, electricity, health, education, street cleaning, the maintenance of public spaces and parks, public lighting, archives, and cemeteries (UN-Habitat, 2016). Communities that experience deficiency in the provision of one or more of these services require that community-level programs and projects engage in the upgrading of these services in order for the residents to have social inclusion.

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government as one of its main responsibilities. But the provision of these services by the government may be inexistent or deficient to some communities. According to the World Cities Report of 2016, although public management has long been the dominant approach to basic service provision, for hundreds of millions at the bottom of the system, garbage pickup and removal is almost non-existent; toilets are rare; running water to one's premises is an impossibility; well-funded public education is unavailable; and the quality of health services, transport facilities, and open spaces is low. The report also states that cities are not being able to keep up with the rapidly growing demand they face because they do not hold the necessary human resources, large-scale capital, or technical capabilities.

Tuckman (1984) takes a closer look at this deficiency and theorizes that this government inefficiency arises from a failure of preference, production, and delivery. The first occurs when the government produces a different mix of collective services than is socially desirable; that is, while some persons will feel that the government oversupplies services, others feel under-supplied. The second occurs when the government produces services less efficiently than it could at given cost levels either by using a different organization of production or a different resource combination. And the third occurs when the targeted beneficiaries fail to receive the intended level of services; the production of the service might be efficient, but it does not provide either the level or type of service intended for the targeted group. For Mizrahi (2012), this lack of and deficient provision of services is the cause of self-provision in marginalized communities. He argues that when citizens are dissatisfied with the quality or quantity of any of these services provided by the public sector, they may attempt to improve their outcome and satisfy their needs by illegal or extralegal strategies. He points out that exiting the public network provider and transitioning to a self-provision strategy usually involves extra payments in addition to regular tax payments and that most people prefer to avoid extra payments and receive the services they pay for through taxes. Thus, dissatisfied citizens are expected to first voice their discontent with the provision of the services they are paying for rather than taking an exit to some kind of alternative. It is why, he explains, citizens tend to voice their dissatisfaction and make claim for an improved provision of services before going into any form of self-provision that would result in extra costs.

This thesis intends to show how Mexico City residents practice strategies of voicing and self-provision as a result of nonconformity with the provision of services

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they receive (or not receive) from the government. In order to do so later on, these next sections intend to briefly introduce the services that these communities are expected to receive, and that community-level programs and projects help improve as they attempt to make a positive impact on the social inclusion of marginalized communities.

4.1 Public Spaces

Public spaces are essential to social interaction, collective memory, and citizen’s communication. They promote resident’s solidarity and solidarity is what makes a public space develop social togetherness (Amin, 2008). A public space can be changed by public action because it is owned by all; they are considered successful when they increase opportunities to participate in communal activities (Carr, et al. 1993). Public spaces come in many forms: open spaces such as parks, markets, streets and squares; and closed spaces such as malls, libraries, town halls, swimming pools, clubs and bars (Amin, 2008). But not everyone benefits in the same way from these spaces. While some areas have a first-rate infrastructure, well-tended parks, and squares, other urban districts suffer from severe deprivations due to sub-standard services, a lack of recreation areas and cultural centers, urban decay, and a dearth of capital investment in public goods. These tangible differences in access to and the use of public spaces are both the symptoms and cause of rising inequalities (UN-Habitat et. al, 2014). As these differences persist, social exclusion prevails. Ensuring equity of provision of services for the means of subsistence and sustenance of public spaces presupposes an inclusion by allowing the recipients to participate fully as social subjects in their communities (Amin, 2008).

4.2 Transportation and Road Infrastructure

The outskirts of urban centers tend to be inhabited by people who are on low incomes and highly dependent on public transport for their daily journeys. The restricted mobility to which low-income urban residents are subject entails fewer opportunities and prospects for human and social growth, which in turn increases levels of poverty, inequality, and exclusion (UN-Habitat et. al, 2014). An ineffective road system can hinder progress in rural development, the viability of urban areas, and the expansion of jobs and education (Queiroz and Gaudam,1992). Transportation is divided in two, public and private; being the car the most preferred mode of private

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transportation. This is due to convenience, speed, comfort and individual freedom (Beirâo and Cabral, 2007). But due to environmental impact and traffic congestion, cities all around the world are trying to reduce the use of cars. As for roads, they can be paved or unpaved. The World Bank considers well paved roads as those that are free of defects and only require routine maintenance; and good unpaved roads as those that only require routine grading and spot repairs (Queiroz and Gaudam,1992). Andreassen (1995) showed that levels of satisfaction with the provision of transportation services depend on fares and time. Beirâo and Cabral (2007) add that they have found that reliability and frequency are important factors as well. As commutes are longer for those who live in the margins of the city, having housing located near public transport helps reduce the cost of a family by reducing the dependency on and need to maintain expensive modes of transportation (Dandekar, 2012) like private cars or taxis. Beirâo and Cabral (2007) and Andreassen (1995) agree that public transport fails to properly deliver to many citizens because they don't take into account preferences and differences between citizens. As cars are expensive and their use is everyday more restricted, a social inclusion model for transportation and road infrastructure must then look into the specific needs and context of a community and design collective mobility systems that correspond to those preferences. Marginalized communities that stand in the peripheries of the city are the most disconnected and excluded in terms of transportation and mobility.

4.3 Security

Provision of security for the purpose of this thesis involves protection against crime and violence. It is the sort of security that the government, mostly throughout law enforcement entities, should be able to provide. But security is another area in which a high level of demand for high-quality services meets a shortage in supply, therefore citizens come up with the development of alternative initiatives for producing this service (Mizrahi, 2012). The sense of security can be individual or collective; it involves fear of a threat and the attempts to protect oneself, someone, or something (Wu and Meng, 2018). Security can go from feeling safe crossing the street to feeling safe sleeping at night. The level of insecurity for a community or an individual is proportionate to the level of threat (Palfreeman, 2004). Therefore, attempts by

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community-level projects and programs to increase security in communities, must identify these threats and look for ways to reduce them or eliminate them if they wish to improve the provision of services and social inclusion of their recipients.

4.4 Health

Public health problems can also be a security threat (Fidler, 2007) as the spread of infectious poverty-related diseases such as cholera, typhoid and others (Gupta, and Vegelin, 2016) may jeopardize an entire community or population. Social exclusion can lead to poorer physical health, through poor diet, lack of opportunities for exercise, or higher rates of smoking and drug use. This is complemented by lack of hope, as many people who are socially excluded feel little hope for the future, especially if barriers such as disability or health problems persist (Unit and Britain, 2001). For Sen (2000), the exclusion of large sections of the population from public health services, often due to high costs, is a form of social exclusion because ill-health makes social relations more difficult for an individual. But for Sachs (2004), as important as access to health services may be, he states that it is only part of the broader objective of improving the health condition of the people, therefore, community-level projects and programs should also invest in preventive measures like vaccinations. A social inclusive provision of health services should aim to deliver what Hornet et al. (2013) define as valued health care; care that the patient desires and that is delivered in a manner that the patient finds acceptable. For the excluded, social inclusion requires an improvement in their access to valued health services.

4.5 Education

Education is essential to development due to its intrinsic values, as it contributes to cultural awakening, awareness-raising, greater adaptability, and a growing sense of autonomy, self-reliance, and self-confidence (Sachs, 2004). Education has always been seen as an economic investment, a social equalizer, and a measure of social advance (Adams, 1977). Education enables and empowers citizens to actively participate and be involved in society. It plays an important role in the ability to participate with confidence in the public sphere (Tsujita, 2014), giving young citizens the necessary skills for carrying out social relations. The British Social

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Exclusion Unit (2001) found that children and teenagers from marginalized communities have more chances to attend a failing school and less likely to achieve good qualifications. In order to improve education services in recipient communities, community-level projects and programs must develop a system of oversight to ensure higher access to education and schools and enforce measures that aim to improve the quality of education (Crane et al. 2010).

4.6 Housing

Housing insecurity is a pervasive problem worldwide (Weinstein, 2012). Many cities do not know how to properly address issues like homelessness or overcrowding of informal settlements. The homeless are those who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence and have a primary nighttime residence that is temporary (like a shelter or refugee camp) or a public or private place not designed for sleeping accommodation (Breau, 2012). Informal settlements are densely populated areas located in or close to the inner city, often with poor-quality housing, limited infrastructure, and little or no adequate sanitation (Weinstein, 2012). As cities expand and population grows, social inclusiveness requires that citizens have access to adequate housing. According to The Commission on Human Settlements and the Global Strategy for Shelter, this should mean adequate privacy, adequate space, adequate security, adequate lighting and ventilation, adequate basic infrastructure and adequate location with regard to work and basic facilities – all at a reasonable cost (Saul et al. 2014). While for the UN-Habitat (2016), adequate housing is a human right that ensures among other things, protection against forced evictions and destruction of one’s home, the right to choose one’s residence and freedom to move, affordability, and security of tenure. Silver (1994) found that certain citizens suffered from spatial exclusion due to living in deprived suburbs. A social inclusive approach to development must ensure adequate and affordable housing in marginalized communities while protecting those that suffer from development-induced displacements and evictions.

4.7 Basic Utilities

This service includes household utilities like electricity, water, gas, sewer, communications, and waste management. It recognizes the importance of having

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access to each of them in a home. Marginalized communities often lack access to most of these services (Saul et al. 2014) and community-level programs must provide or improve access to one or more of these basic utilities in order to make a positive impact on the social inclusion of their recipients. Marginalized communities are characterized by their precarious legality and almost non-existent level of these basic utilities (UN-Habitat, 2016). Because these communities do not receive a satisfactory provision of these services from the government (Silver, 1994), before they go into in self-provision in an illegal and unsafely manner (Mizrahi, 2012), non-governmental organizations must look for solutions to provide or improve the access to these services.

5. Policy of Participation

A policy of participation entails the involvement of the recipients in the community-level projects and programs and an exposure of the community’s conditions to the general public at a national and international level. If inclusive institutions are those who allow broad participation of the citizens (Hickey et al., 2015), implementing a policy of participation delivery strategy should make of a project or program an inclusive one. Social inclusiveness aims at empowering the poorest through investing in human capital and enhancing the opportunities for participation (Gupta and Vegelin, 2016). Gupta and Vegelin argue that engaging the marginalized in the politics of governance and including their knowledge in defining development processes and goals for a project or program are key to ensure social inclusion. Many scholars call this ‘participatory development. This type of development is bottom-up and engages actively the participants in the designing and assessment of the development initiatives and projects by having them be the key factor that will cause a change in their community (Dietz et al., 2009). This requires the active participation on an everyday basis of individuals in managing the affairs of a community to which they belong or in which they live (Czupich, 2018). It is their involvement that makes this approach different.

The International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health defines participation as ‘involvement in a life situation’ or as ‘“the lived experience” of people

in the actual context in which they live’ (Piškur et al. 2014). But Piškur et al. also

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participation as (the right for) ‘meaningful involvement in decision-making about health, policy and planning, care and treatment, and the well-being of self and the community’. This leads us to the next component for a policy of participation: decision-making.

Inclusive social development must increase the opportunity of the poor for participation in decision-making and self-managed community services such as in the creation of community-based groups in microfinance, health and natural resources management (Rauniyar and Kambur, 2010). Once involvement of the recipients is secured, including them in the decision-making process is the next step for a policy of participation. Participation research provides evidence that when people are involved in decision-making processes, they are more likely to support the implementation of related policies and projects (Evans and Hollander, 2010). This practice has proven to be beneficial to communities because, according to Czupich (2018), the opportunity to participate in decision-making gives residents a sense of making a real impact on local life and promotes the formation of strong local identity and community integration. A policy of participation will also be beneficial to the organizations whose community level projects and programs adopt this practice. One of the often-cited benefits of participation includes citizens' commitment to implementation (Evans and Hollander, 2010). The literature agrees that the higher the participation the more the acceptance rate of a project; ensuring this type of participation, especially in the planning stage, makes the project's success very likely (Spence, 2008). Spence’s Growth Report also reassures that community participation can preserve resident's sense of belonging and ensure that the services provided are what local people want and need.

The last of the requisites for this component of social inclusion is national and international exposure of the situation of the community and the job being done there by the project or program. For Czupich (2018), participation promotes a more complete implementation of the principle of social solidarity. This leads to a national and international involvement in the process of social inclusion of marginalized communities. By communicating recipients’ needs to the national and international community, solidarity may be attained. Solidarity, the act of society engaging in improving the quality of life of the marginalized, is a natural process of this exposure and leads to a better access to well-being and social inclusion (Czupich, 2018). Therefore, the exposure that organizations give of their recipient communities in a

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national and international level, and the participation they hold at these two levels will help determine the policy of participation of their projects or programs. A policy of participation is important because if there is recipients’ engagement, participation in the decision-making process, and a proactive exposure and participation at the national and international level, social inclusion is likely to be improved.

6. Equal Market Participation

In a more socio-economic sense, the marginalized are those who are unable to work (Wong, 2005), are being deprived of credit access (Gumede, 2018), don’t reach minimal prevailing consumption levels (Silver, 1995), and receive an unfair pay for their job (Fawcett, 1918; Spence, 2018). Being excluded from equal market participation can lead to impoverishment and other social deprivations like undernourishment or homelessness (Sen, 2000). These groups are likely to remain under poverty levels if a social inclusive strategy to market participaton is not employed in time. This strategy should ensure equality of income, equal and fair pay of wages, better access to the labor market, stronger purchasing power, and better access to goods.

Reducing the pay gap is essential for ensuring access and entry, via training and organization, to skilled industries and achieving real competition levels for the marginalized (Fawcett, 1918; Grimshaw and Rubery, 2014). A social inclusive approach to promote equal market participation must encourage decent incomes and fair pay for marginalized communities. It is important to recognize that income not only comes from salaried jobs, but that there is a diversity of ways to be employed and in marginalized communities, informal jobs are what prevail (Lund, 2002). These informal jobs have wages that are insecure, unstable and tend to decline or stagnate even if formal jobs' wages increase (Rodgers, 1989). Lund (2002) describes workers of the informal sectors as those who do not have access to social security, as well as being beyond the reach of labor legislation where the risks are higher than in a formal job because responsibility for occupational health and safety is increasing at the cost of the workers themselves. According to Lund, these jobs are insecure and precarious in terms both their reliability and the exposure to hazardous work conditions because they face a plethora of challenges in terms of the 'reach' of regulations, accessibility

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to financial institutions or information systems, the ability to organize, and the level of public awareness of their work conditions.

The informal sector ranges from street and door-to-door vendors, to small scale producers like fruit and vegetable small farmers and handmade apparel artisans, to service providers like self-employed masons and subcontractors. Although social inclusiveness aims to engage the marginalized as producers, distributors, suppliers, and consumers in a durable, equitable, and effective, manner (Gupta and Pouw, 2017), informality still involves exclusion for these workers. Sachs (2004) calls these jobs, petty activities and he proposes a transformation of petty activities into organized small-scale enterprises capable of competing in the mainstream capitalistic market. Their social inclusion will be a result of upgrading their skills and managerial capacities and improving their systemic competitiveness through converging affirmative actions like preferential access to credit, technology and markets. The transition of informal producers to small and medium formal enterprises will give them protection by labor laws, access to social services and retirement benefits. The problem, according to Sachs is that many petty producers seem attached to their informality, arguing that they are better off in terms of immediate gains by evading taxation and social charges. It is then the task of community-level programs and projects to help them see the benefits of this transition in order to have marginalized communities achieve better market participation and social inclusion.

If we address unequal wages and the informal labor sector, it is possible to make an impact on income inequality. On the other hand, inequality of income is very closely linked to inequality of consumption and the policies designed to combat income inequality have an impact on inequality in consumer spending (Unit and Britain, 2001). This leads us to purchasing power. Purchasing power is the value of the money an individual possesses based on the prices of the goods he or she will acquire with it (Shepherd, 1932; Taylor and Taylor, 2004). It is an evaluation of the change in the consumer's well being judged upon the change in its satisfaction with the acquired goods (Lewis, 1937). Now, goods, either public or not should be of equal access to everyone. But there is always the possibility of exclusion through the prices each good can have (Goldin, 1977; Besley and Ghatak, 2001). Ensuring equal access to goods by increasing the purchasing power of the marginalized is a way to stimulate equal market participation. Although many scholars talk about equal access to goods, Olsen and Rodgers (1991) talk about equal consumption. They state that there are usually

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enough goods to be provided to the population, the problem is not merely the access to them, but the level of consumption they have of these goods. Having access does not ensure a proper level of the consumption of this good. Although the most direct ways to improve purchasing power are employment, formalization, and organization of labor, and equality of wages and income, there are other indirect ways in which it can be improved. Like for example, by improving or providing services like transportation, electricity, access to health, education, or social security programs (O'reagan and Quigley, 1991).

This section calls for an attempt to achieve social inclusion by increasing the purchasing power of the recipients of a program or project to reduce consumption inequality and provide access to a better food basket. It also calls for a recognition of an equal access to the labor market, the promotion of well-payed jobs, and the transition from the informal to the formal sector as key elements for ensuring equal market participation of the marginalized.

7. Social Vulnerability Protection

Social inclusion looks at the causes and effects of social vulnerability in order to protect the marginalized against the impact natural and civic hazards may have on their well-being. Social vulnerability is a form of social inequality. It is present in marginalized groups that face the threat of a hazard whose potential is either moderated or enhanced by a social fabric or a geographic filter (Cutter et al., 2003). The social fabric makes reference to the resources and knowledge a community possess to face hazards and risks that have a civil component, like civil conflicts; and the geographic filter makes reference to the exposure and preparation a community has to face natural disasters, like earthquakes. These hazards can be divided into natural disasters and collective shocks.

Collective shocks are a state where there is some sort of social paralysis caused by a previous hazard that left people in trauma and as a result are now more hesitant to accept or make decisions that were unthinkable before the crisis (Ciccone, 2008). These shocks can be induced via wars, civil conflicts, economic crisis, social crisis, terrorist attacks, coups d'etat, or natural disasters (Klein, 2007). Collective shocks pave the way for institutions and governments to establish a new set of rules that serve as transition to a drastic change in the shocked population. Historically,

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collective shocks have been of great advantage for foreign governments that want to impose more authoritative and economically liberal institutions over the shocked population which has led to dictatorships, massive indebtment, human rights violations, and exploitation of natural resources (Klein, 2007). According to Fink and Holden (2002), a shocked community that suffers intervention from foreign institutions will have one of four possible outcomes: integration, when a new culture is developed with previous traits of the community and new traits brought from outer institutions; Assimilation, when a community adjusts to a whole different set of norms and organizational method; Separation, when a clear divide is made between two or more sides of the shocked community; and Marginalization, where a community's resources are exploited, its residents suffer great losses socially and economically, and get less benefits from the success of society than better situated socio-economical groups.

Inclusive development programs and projects can mitigate the effects of and prevent collective shocks by building what Klein (2007) calls shock absorbers; which are based on decentralization techniques, like the creation and stimulation of cooperatives, grassroots and community-led organizations, fair trade organizations, and the preservation of collective memory. Although these practices can also make an impact on the prevention and preparation for natural disasters, they require other technical approaches. Natural disasters are hazards that can most of the time not be prevented but the effect they will have on the population can be mitigated. For it to be considered a natural disaster, the natural event must have a negative impact on the infrastructure and lives of a population; this impact is measured on the vulnerability of a population to the exposure of the disaster (Strömberg, 2007). A social inclusive approach must, therefore, aim to reduce this vulnerability. Ways to prepare for a natural disaster include enhancement and decentralization of the provision of services, planning of evacuation routes, disaster emergency funding, and growing resilience, which includes the creation of institutions and mechanisms for disaster governance (Fidler, 2007). In the same way that social inclusiveness aims to reduce the exposure to risks that exacerbate vulnerability such as civil conflict, it must address the exposure and vulnerability to natural disasters (Rauniyar and Kanbur, 2010).

Social inclusiveness must also promote social equality, address the effects and causes of horizontal inequalities (Kabeer, 2015), and prevent marginalization based on gender, age, race, disabilities, and minorities. On a non-discriminatory basis, it should provide minimum protection for these populations through social protection

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systems (Gupta and Vegelin, 2016) and ensure their recognition and participation in society (Gupta and Pouw, 2017). These social protection systems may involve providing social insurance, assistance, and education on equality and marginalization, and labor equality (Hickey et al., 2015). Although discrimination, marginalization, and social inequality are more likely to be present in kids, the elderly, people with physical and/or mental disabilities, and indigenous and other race and ethnic minorities, the literature on social development agrees that are women the biggest group that suffers from these circumstances.

Women suffer from higher rates of unemployment and lower rates of employment than men, are less likely to participate in the labor force, face higher risks of vulnerable employment, are over-represented in low-income households, and are most affected by increased tariffs in social services, both as recipients and as caretakers for dependents (Bidegain et al. 2016). Women are more likely to take part in the house as caretakers and become head of family and household in marginalized communities. Men are prone to migrate and abandon their home and family when they see an opportunity to enhance their well-being and quality of life (Kabeer, 2010); this leaves us with the mothers as the supporter and head of the family. Kabeer (2015) makes the distinction between female-supported households (those supported primarily or solely by women’s earnings) and female-headed households (managed by women in the temporary absence of men). She argues that the former case is more associated with the marginalization poverty cycle. Collective shocks and natural disasters affect in a more acute way these households because they show greater exposure to risks and fewer means for recovery. With fewer options available to them, poorer households arrived at the later and less reversible stages of the sequence outlined above with greater rapidity than other households and were more likely to permanently slide into greater poverty (Kabeer, 2010).

Even in a marginalized community, women as a whole earn less than the men and have a lower ceiling in terms of career advancement; many of their access to insurance-based social security comes through their working husbands' medical aid or retirement pension (Lund, 2002). This is just one example of how men and women do not suffer from marginalization in the same manner; therefore, Kabeer (2010) states that gender inequality is more horizontal than vertical but has traits of both as it is women and girls from the poorest caste, ethnic, and racial groups who have poorer levels of health, nutrition, and education, and very often suffer higher levels of violence

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than other women, including women from similarly poor backgrounds. Social inclusiveness is designed to eliminate these inequalities by improving the status of women through health and welfare programs and promoting their participation in the development of society (Rauniyar and Kambur, 2010). It must also strive for gender equality by eliminating discrimination, violence, harmful social practices, promoting participation, and promoting and providing accesto s women's rights (Gupta and Vegelin, 2016) like reproductive and sexual health rights (Bidegain et al. 2016). A social inclusive development that protects the marginalized against social vulnerabilities takes into consideration the risks posed by natural disasters and collective shocks and protects its recipients against discrimination or systemic inequality.

8. Human Rights-Based Approach

According to the UNDP (1998), the central goal of development is the promotion of human well‐being; and given that human rights define and defend human well‐ being, a rights‐based approach to development provides both the conceptual and practical framework for the realization of human rights through the development process (OHCHR, 2006). As social inclusiveness has its roots in human rights (Gupta and Vegelin, 2016), the legal considerations of recognizing human rights make of this concept one of social justice (Gupta, 2014). Human rights are interdependent, therefore the impact a program or project has on one human right will impact other human rights.

Although a human rights-based approach has gain popularity throughout the development sector, organizations’ definitions and degrees of implementation vary significantly (Schmitz, 2012). For the purposes of this thesis, when a human rights-based approach is taken, it refers to all human rights (especially those in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948); but social development emphasizes in economic and cultural rights (Hamm, 2001) such as the right of life, the right to education, right to housing, right to adequate standard of living, right to health, right to social security, and the right to own property.

This approach is necessary because it imposes certain conditions on the act of prioritization of services that protect the poor against certain trade-offs that may be harmful to them (OHCHR, U., 2006). It influences agents of change and dialogue

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between stakeholders (Cornwall, 2014). And it can also counter mal-development by assessing the causes of marginalization, poverty, and inequality (Gupta and Pouw, 2017). An approach like this, empowers communities and enhances their well-being (Cornwall, 2014). Projects and programs that safeguard one or more of these rights should be making a positive impact on the social inclusion of the community.

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III. Methodology

This chapter intends to discuss the methods employed for carrying out this research. It provides a detailed description of the structure of the research and reasoning for why these methods and research structure were chosen. It starts with a visual explanation of the five main concepts that served as the basis for the research and proceeds with a detailed discussion of the quality of research. It continues with an exploration of the epistemological and ontological positioning of the research and thesis, and it ends with the ethical considerations taken.

(e)

(d)

(c)

(b)

a) Human Rights-Based Approach

b) Provision of Services

c) Equal Market Participation

d) Social Vulnerability Protection

e) Policy of Participation

f) Social Inclusion

(a)

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1. Conceptual Scheme

The five aspects of social inclusion are represented above. Social inclusion as a whole is represented as a finished house. The parts that make the house of social inclusion complete are a human rights-based approach, provision of services, equal market participation, social vulnerability protection, and a policy of participation. There is no correct order to build this house, it is a circular sequence and the result can come from any combination. Each part of the house is equally important and complementary to one another. The house without the walls, door, windows or roof is incomplete in the same manner that social inclusion is not achieved if any of the five aspects are missing.

2. Philosophical stance

This research derives from the premise that social reality is perceived differently by every individual in accordance to their environment, culture, and context. Social reality is constructed through human experience, interaction, and activity with others and with their surroundings (Kukla, 2013). Because it is a social invention, it cannot be discovered (Kim, 2003) and therefore, this research intends not to find any reality but to understand why and how reality is perceived by an individual or a group of people. This goes in line with an epistemology stance based on understanding the meanings of social actions within the context of the material conditions in which people live (Ormston et al., 2014). In addition, taking an ontological subjective approach reflects that this research believes that we all see the social world different because it is open to subjective interpretation (Lewis & Ritchie, 2003) and this interpretation is conditioned to our experiences, imagination, and relations (Bahari, 2010). Because no two persons will perceive reality in the exact same way and social reality is the result of social constructs, this research adopts a social constructivist approach where it takes into account the fact that society generates knowledge and terms and gives meaning to objects and activities (Kim, 2003). This research came across a multiplicity of realities and to understand each and every one of them the most appropriate methods were applied.

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3. Case study

In the process of case selection, a single case selection proved to be enough to study the implementation and effects of social inclusion in community-level development projects and programs. Due to the exploratory and descriptive focus this thesis holds, the research followed a typical case selection method where the case selected was chosen based on a set of characteristics that would help exemplify the emphasis of the research (Gerring, 2008). The case selected needed to be a representative of a socially exclusive city. This entailed a 1) highly-dense and rapid population growth, 2) big territorial dimensions with a rapid urban expansion, 3) high inequality levels, and 4) high concentration of community-level social action organizations. Mexico City was then chosen as it complies with all of these requisites and is, therefore, representative of a socially exclusive city.

4. Unit of analysis

This thesis looks into how development projects and programs are helping marginalized communities achieve social inclusion; therefore, the unit of analysis of the research are the programs and projects. These are carried out by organizations that work in the development sector. In order to study the projects and programs, it is necessary to study the organizations that conduct them; therefore, the organizations selected are the units of observation for the research. The next section looks into how these organizations were selected.

5. Sampling Strategy

Having a qualitative nature, this research implemented a purposive sampling strategy where the chosen organizations were selected with the purpose of ensuring representation of the rural and urban areas of Mexico City, and the diversity of the work done in each of the communities. A stratified approach, which aims to select homogenous and heterogenous units that display variation of a key trait (Ritchie et al., 2003), to purposive sampling allowed the sampling process to select organizations whose aim was development of marginalized communities in Mexico City and whose work covered the majority of the sixteen city’s municipalities. Although the efforts of these organizations impact the totality of Mexico City, I personally visited their work in seven of the 16 municipalities.

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The stratified purposive sampling approach also allowed for the selection of organizations to be based on the projects and programs they had. This ensured that all of the five traits of social inclusiveness were being covered by the organizations’ programs and projects. A total of six organizations were studied as the main focus of the research and discussed in-depth, but an additional four are mentioned in the progression of this thesis as they played a key role in the recollection of data2_.

6. Data collection methods

This research employs a triangulation approach by using three different sources of data collection in order to obtain different perspectives on the projects and programs' goals, impacts and reviews. These methods are semi-structured interviews, document analysis, and participant observations.

Semi-structured interviews require a bullet plan and a guide, but the questions made are open-ended, leaving space for new ideas to rise and for the interviewees to elaborate on their personal experiences (Longhurst, 2003). This allowed me to explore new concepts and discover unforeseen patterns and practices during the conversations with the interviewees. Out of the 12 semi-structured interviews carried out in the field, 11 of the interviewees were members of one of the studied organizations, one was a resident of one of the impacted communities by these organizations, four were volunteer members of the organization and residents of the impacted community, one was only a resident, and two were only volunteers.

Participant observations permitted me, as a researcher, to join the studied organizations and communities and record their actions, interactions, and events that occurred. Apart from being able to observe new phenomena as it rose, it also offered the opportunity to gain additional insights through experiencing the phenomena myself (Ritchie, 2003). A total of seven observations were made during the research. All of the observations were made in different communities and they all required that I established contact and made previous arrangements with either a member of the community or the organization so that they would accompany me during my visit and participation. In these observations, I was able to get in contact with the recipients and see for myself their living conditions in terms of housing infrastructure, transport

2_{One of the six organizations is composed of 14 smaller organizations. More than half of the data}

collected on this organization involves the activities of the smaller organizations that form it. More on these organizations can be found in…

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disconnection, and damage caused by the earthquake. It also gave me the opportunity to talk with them about their views and satisfaction on the projects, programs, and the organizations themselves. As a participant-observer, I engaged in some of the projects’ activities like helping paint murals, or installing dry bathrooms, in meetings between the organizations and the communities and educational workshops in a variety of topics held by the organizations in the recipient communities.

Document analysis involves the study of existing documents to understand their substantive content and reveal their deeper meanings and purpose (Ritchie, 2003). As part of this research, a series of organization documents were collected and studied to gain another perspective on the projects’ and programs’ structure and goals. This also allowed me to corroborate and complement the information I received from the interviews.

7. Data analysis

Analysis of the data gathered via the three methods previously discussed is based on its content. This entails an examination of texts, observations, and verbal accounts to explore how these enact, confirm, legitimate, reproduce or challenge social relations and activities (Van Dijk, 2001). Verbatim transcriptions were made of the interviews and observations were written down in a participant observation journal. This research content analysis looked into the pre-existing documents gathered and the created documents for social inclusive analysis.

The three forms of data collected were coded using ATLAS. ti program. The objective was to look for evidence of the five aspects of social inclusion (Equal market participation, Social vulnerability protection, Human rights-based approach, Policy of Participation, and Provision of services). The goal was to find out how each program's and project's work was impacting each of the five aspects. This required a conceptualization of each of the aspects, which resulted in a total of 40 codes. All data and information about the organizations and their work presented in this thesis is a product of this process.

7. Quality of research

While planning and conducting the research, I took measures myself to ensure that I gathered as many viewpoints as possible from each organization and their work.