Navigating the Margins of Urban Sustainability Transitions Environmental Degradation in Metropolitan Barranquilla

Abstract

Urban spaces are currently at the spotlight of sustainability transitions. More and more researchers and policy makers are drawing attention to the role that cities have on climate change, as well as the potential they have of reducing environmental degradation by promoting urban sustainability transitions. However, these transitions can sometimes neglect or worsen pre-existing socio-environmental problems. The city of Barranquilla is currently spearheading urban sustainability transitions in Colombia, with its new Ecopark, green spaces, and renewable energy infrastructures. Meanwhile, at the South of Barranquilla, the city of Malambo has been experiencing for decades a severe environmental degradation of its wetlands. This degradation is still under researched, and even less is known about the connections between the situation in Malambo and the urban sustainability transition in Barranquilla. Therefore, this master thesis attempts to characterize this socio-environmental degradation in Malambo, within the context of these increasing investments and policies for developing a sustainable Barranquilla. To do so, an ethnographic research was conducted, according to - and guided by - a decolonial ecology perspective. This investigation aims to raise more attention to what is happening in Malambo, while at the same time contributing to a more critical view about urban sustainability transitions. It is crucial to bear in mind that promises of salvation in such transitions do not erase inequalities and injustices of the past. Hence, this research expects to raise discussions on what extent urban transitions may also lean on such inequalities to sustain themselves.