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Dr Christien Klaufus

Assistant Professor
Research Theme: Human Geography
Tel. +31 20 525 3249; Fax +31 20 625 5127
Office hours: by appointment

Christien Klaufus joined CEDLA in April 2008 as Assistant Professor of Human Geography. She graduated in Architecture and Urbanism at Eindhoven University of Technology in 1993 and in Cultural Anthropology (cum laude) at the University of Amsterdam in 1999. In 2006 she received her PhD in Anthropology at Utrecht University. From 1999 to 2001 and from 2006 to 2008 she worked as a researcher at OTB Research Institute for Housing, Urban and Mobility Studies at Delft University of Technology, where she studied to what extent self-provided housing contributes to a sense of community.

Research interests

Her research project 'Changing social landscapes in medium-sized cities' consists of two main topics: 1) dwelling, housing, and the social meanings of architecture and material culture in areas with high levels of transnational migration; 2) urbanization processes and urban change in medium-sized cities.

The basis of that project was laid in her PhD thesis, which addresses urban planning and self-provided housing in two intermediate Ecuadorian cities in a time frame characterized by globalization and a renewed interest in local identity constructions. In the thesis she presents professionals and self-builders' experiences with house building. She concludes that a new middle class successfully uses certain architectural forms as symbols and catalysts of social mobility.
Building on those findings she studies the role of architectural preferences for social relations in areas with high levels of transnational migration. Parts of that study have been conducted in Guatemala, El Salvador, Peru and Ecuador. For her second research topic she explores from a geographical perspective how both planned urban growth and the so-called urbanization-from-below contribute to the development of medium-sized cities.

Selected publications of Dr Christien Klaufus

— 2012 (forthcoming April) Urban Residence: Housing and Social Transformations in Globalizing Ecuador

— 2011 'Arquitectura de remesas: "Demonstration effect" in Latin American popular architecture', Etnofoor 23(1), 9-28.

— 2010 ‘Watching the city grow: Remittances and sprawl in intermediate Central American cities’, Environment and Urbanization 22(1): 125-137.

— 2010 ‘The two ABCs of aided self-help housing in Ecuador’, Habitat International 34: 351-358.

— 2009 Construir la ciudad Andina: Planificación y autoconstrucción en Riobamba y Cuenca. Quito: Abya Yala/FLACSO (Spaanse vertaling dissertatie).

— 2006 ‘Globalization in residential architecture in Cuenca, Ecuador: social and cultural diversification of architects and their clients’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 24(1): 69-89.

Please click here for the complete publications list of Dr Christien Klaufus