Kinshasa, By Filip De Boeck

Filip De Boeck conducted his research over a 15 year period in Kinshasa, the capital of the D.R. Congo. His article focuses on the urban poor, some of whom live in abandoned colonial-era edifices. The research tries to understand how people negotiate, hold on to personal possessions and space, in lawless environments. It explores the rhythms of daily life, how people modify words to reflect their situation. How survival requires people to constantly form temporary alliances over the smallest things they share in common, which may seem totally arbitrary to an outside observer.
The article explains the continuous struggle of life in which the poor must constantly guard the little space and resources that they temporarily occupy. In order to survive