Neighbourhoods fit for diverse young people: civic media practices and urban claims-making in Nepal and India
Active Project
Camila Cociña
Senior researcher (housing justice), Human Settlements research group
Camila Cociña is a development planner and architect who co-convenes IIED’s work on housing justice.
Camila's work focuses on:
- Enhancing the capabilities and mobilisation of grassroots groups, working with organised communities to advance housing rights
- Influencing policy and practice and the wider governance systems that support the realisation of housing rights, and
- Forging international alliances and advocacy strategies for housing justice, seeking to consolidate and strengthen collective efforts and solidarity networks.
She has worked on collaborative projects with researchers, communities, international agencies and public organisations in Latin America, West Africa and Southeast Asia, seeking fairer ways of mobilising diverse knowledge from a social justice perspective.
Expertise
Housing justice, with emphasis on urban equality and gender. Camila's housing work relates mainly to informality, participation and local governments.
Before IIED
- Research fellow, Knowledge in Action for Urban Equality (KNOW) programme, University College London
- Teaching fellow, the Bartlett Development Planning Unit, University College London
Education
- PhD, development planning, University College London
- MSc, building and urban design in development, University College London
- Architect, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
Current work
Camila co-convenes IIED’s work on housing justice, working across several projects. These include:
- Action-research projects enhancing capabilities of grassroots groups to advance housing justice. These include projects focused on communication capacities, such as 'civic media for housing rights: lessons from struggles against evictions in São Paulo and Lagos’ and ‘neighbourhoods fit for diverse young people: civic media practices and urban claims-making in Nepal and India’.
- Research and advocacy on key housing justice policy agendas, such as the governance of the value chain of building materials in informal settlements, and the promotion of community-led housing processes.
- Several collaborations with international organisations and civil society networks, including the co-convening of the secretariat of the Hub for Housing Justice. These include work on the role of local governments in advancing the right to housing, the human development implications of improving housing in informal settlements, and housing policy options to tackle urban inequalities.
Camila is currently developing a series of projects around monitoring and preventing forced evictions, including the co-convening of a network of human rights and evictions in Chile, where she is based.
Projects
