Author(s)

Peter M. Ward, Edith R. Jiménez Huerta, María Mercedes Di Virgilio

Departamento de Estudios Regionales, Universidad de Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Mexico.
Department of Sociology, &The Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA.
Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina;Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The paper describes an innovative methodology developed as part of a major “mixed methods” collaborative and multidisciplinary research project across several Latin American cities. It offers a systematic “hands-on” methodology about how to conduct multi-disciplinary and team-based intensive case studies of low-income household dynamics and trajectories in self-help dwelling structures in (now) consolidated low-income settlements of Latin America. The research project describes how to collect information about family genealogies, household organization and individual member mobility, tied to materials that allow for the construction of detailed housing plans and architectonic diagrams resulting from self-building in informal settlements over a thirty-year period. The majority of the original “owner” self-builders still reside in these (now) consolidated properties, and the methodology provides for cross generational analysis of household behavior in relation to the dynamics of dwelling construction and use of space, household organization, inheritance and heirship.

Case Study Methodology, Informal Settlements, Latin America, Dwelling Spaces, Trans-Generational Inheritance, Mobility Patterns

Ward, P. , Jiménez Huerta, E. and Virgilio, M. (2014) Intensive Case Study Methodology for the Analysis of Self-Help Housing Consolidation, Household Organization and Family Mobility. Current Urban Studies, 2, 88-104. doi: 10.4236/cus.2014.22010.