A lo largo del camino de cresta. Una mirada retrospectiva sobre una investigación en las periferias urbanas, El Alto (Bolivia)

Abstract

To lead an investigation in the peripheral zones of southern metropolis raises many challenges. The control of social relations between the investigator and its informants constitutes a first epistemological obstacle that can jeopardize the process of investigation, the example of El Alto, Bolivia reveals. In order to analyze urban inequalities from a scientific perspective, the implementation of a plurality of methods (cartography, statistics, questionnaires, etc.) may neutralize the effects of ethnographical interaction without erasing the meaning attributed by the residents to their action, and contribute to the construction of relevant indicators of marginality, especially in the case of family strategies for access to property that are structuring the expansion of urban peripheral areas.

Keywords

• ethnography
• methodological pluralism
• urban inequalities
• marginality
• family strategies
• access to property