ABSTRACT

Existing literature has tended to glorify the process of self-help which is taking place in the barriadas of Peru and has created an image of possible self-development of these areas. My rather different evaluation is based on analysis of the series of actions the barriada settlers (pobladores) have been able to carry out for the purpose of improving their communities. I believe that, within the context of the capitalist economic system, the process of self-help has been incapable of integrating marginal settlers into national development. Rather, it has served to reinforce, through implantation of populist measures of a paternalistic nature via consumption, the existing system of domination.