As a global controversial issue, informal settlements are propagated all over the world. A dialect is present between the classifications of informal settlements. This is manifested in different representation of informal settlements in diverse domains. It is mainly represented to be a problem more than a potential. Using Foucault Discourse Analysis (FDA), this paper considers the construction of informal settlements in fiction with relation to a case study. In doing so, an exploratory explanatory approach is practiced. This occurs by the investigation of the consistencies/inconsistencies between fiction's representation and the case study. In this sense, three main terminologies of FDA are used: object, subject and power. The case study is approached through observations and an interview with a resident. Fiction as utterances, meaning and practice, reflects a version about informal settlements. This makes fiction the main milieu in which FDA is used. At the same time, the case study as a discourse representing an example on site, is used as a background upon which fiction is reflected. In this paper, a debate is present between different discourses that define informal settlements differently (fictional discourse, resident discourse and researcher's observation discourse). It is not a case of granted conclusions but rather an understanding of informal settlements' different constructions. |
