Overview

In contemporary Manila, slums and squatter settlements are peppered throughout the city, often pushing right up against the walled enclaves of the privileged, creating the complex geopolitical pattern of Marco Z. Garrido’s “patchwork city.” Garrido documents the fragmentation of Manila into a mélange of spaces defined by class, particularly slums and upper- and middle-class enclaves. He then looks beyond urban fragmentation to delineate its effects on class relations and politics, arguing that the proliferation of these slums and enclaves and their subsequent proximity have intensified class relations. For enclave residents, the proximity of slums is a source of insecurity, compelling them to impose spatial boundaries on slum residents. For slum residents, the regular imposition of these boundaries creates a pervasive sense of discrimination. Class boundaries then sharpen along the housing divide, and the urban poor and middle class emerge not as labor and capital but as squatters and “villagers,” Manila’s name for subdivision residents. Garrido further examines the politicization of this divide with the case of the populist president Joseph Estrada, finding the two sides drawn into contention over not just the right to the city, but the nature of democracy itself. The Patchwork City illuminates how segregation, class relations, and democracy are all intensely connected.  It makes clear, ultimately, that class as a social structure is as indispensable to the study of Manila—and of many other cities of the Global South—as race is to the study of American cities.  

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9780226643007

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In what promises to be a milestone in urban ethnography, The Patchwork City provides an illuminating picture of the dynamic relations among the poor, the middle classes, and political elites in a struggling, troubled democracy where political mobilization along populist lines becomes the main avenue for demanding and delivering scarce goods and services. Among the merits of this work is that it reveals the authoritarian temptation latent in populism that may eventually surface in the form of a Rodrigo Duterte or Jair Bolsonaro. --Walden Bello, University of the Philippines Deftly combining insights from political and urban sociology with scholarship on symbolic boundaries and morality, The Patchwork City sheds new light on the intersections and interactions between class, space, and politics. The lessons learned in this carefully researched ethnography travel well beyond Philippine politics: those interested in understanding the puzzles and paradoxes of the populist appeal among the dispossessed, and, more generally, the on-the-ground tensions between democracy and exorbitant inequality, should read this book. --Javier Auyero, University of Texas at Austin Making an important contribution to the study of cities and social class, this fascinating account of Manila illuminates how spatial boundaries and social barriers both link and separate the experiences, dispositions, and behavior of the middle class and the urban poor. Beautifully crafted, The Patchwork City incisively connects structure and meaning to illuminate the breakdown of cross-class links and account for the disenchantment with democracy. --Ira Katznelson, Columbia University

Making an important contribution to the study of cities and social class, this fascinating account of Manila illuminates how spatial boundaries and social barriers both link and separate the experiences, dispositions, and behavior of the middle class and the urban poor. Beautifully crafted, The Patchwork City incisively connects structure and meaning to illuminate the breakdown of cross-class links and account for the disenchantment with democracy. -- Ira Katznelson, Columbia University In what promises to be a milestone in urban ethnography, The Patchwork City provides an illuminating picture of the dynamic relations among the poor, the middle classes, and political elites in a struggling, troubled democracy where political mobilization along populist lines becomes the main avenue for demanding and delivering scarce goods and services. Among the merits of this work is that it reveals the authoritarian temptation latent in populism that may eventually surface in the form of a Rodrigo Duterte or Jair Bolsonaro. -- Walden Bello, University of the Philippines Deftly combining insights from political and urban sociology with scholarship on symbolic boundaries and morality, The Patchwork City sheds new light on the intersections and interactions between class, space, and politics. The lessons learned in this carefully researched ethnography travel well beyond Philippine politics: those interested in understanding the puzzles and paradoxes of the populist appeal among the dispossessed, and, more generally, the on-the-ground tensions between democracy and exorbitant inequality, should read this book. -- Javier Auyero, University of Texas at Austin

Making an important contribution to the study of cities and social class, this fascinating account of Manila illuminates how spatial boundaries and social barriers both link and separate the experiences, dispositions, and behavior of the middle class and the urban poor. Beautifully crafted, The Patchwork City incisively connects structure and meaning to illuminate the breakdown of cross-class links and account for the disenchantment with democracy. --Ira Katznelson, Columbia University In what promises to be a milestone in urban ethnography, The Patchwork City provides an illuminating picture of the dynamic relations among the poor, the middle classes, and political elites in a struggling, troubled democracy where political mobilization along populist lines becomes the main avenue for demanding and delivering scarce goods and services. Among the merits of this work is that it reveals the authoritarian temptation latent in populism that may eventually surface in the form of a Rodrigo Duterte or Jair Bolsonaro. --Walden Bello, University of the Philippines Deftly combining insights from political and urban sociology with scholarship on symbolic boundaries and morality, The Patchwork City sheds new light on the intersections and interactions between class, space, and politics. The lessons learned in this carefully researched ethnography travel well beyond Philippine politics: those interested in understanding the puzzles and paradoxes of the populist appeal among the dispossessed, and, more generally, the on-the-ground tensions between democracy and exorbitant inequality, should read this book. --Javier Auyero, University of Texas at Austin

Author Information

Marco Z. Garrido is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Chicago.

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