Inequality

For the last few decades, a strong consensus has held that Latin America is not only the most economically unequal region in the world, but also one where inequality has become structurally entrenched. Even in countries where income levels are relatively high by global standards, a small elite continues to control a disproportionate share of national wealth. This consensus reflects a broader shift in the development community and public arenas.

Zelia Maria Magdalena Nuttall was famous in her time, well-known as an archaeologist, an Americanist, an antiquarian, an ethnologist, a folklorist and “a lady scientist”; she was a woman “making it” in a man’s world from the 1880s to the 1930s. Deeply engaged in research about ancient civilizations in Mexico, she led a remarkable life as a pioneer in the evolution of anthropology as a field of study.

Asked to write about inequality in Latin America, an evolutionary biologist would naturally think first of human history. Systemic inequalities among groups of people has taken many forms over the centuries, since long before the colonial era. For at least as long as there have been cities, there have been inequalities in access to resources, in the form of housing, employment, education and even food and freedom itself. These historic and continuing injustices are widely-recognized. What I wish to write about is the much less visible, but more pervasive, impact of a source of inequalities—the stress of experiencing discrimination—on health that is, perhaps surprisingly, an ancillary consequence of an even older human history of exposure to stress challenges in both our physical and our social environments.

OJOS PROPIOS is very flattered by the vision of ReVista of our work, a kind gesture that makes us to want to continue contributing to the life and well-being of so many people and communities, especially in Peru, whose richness and variety of cultures has allowed us to forge a melting pot of knowledge and learning, whose fruits can be seen here.

I mostly get around the city on my bicycle, and that allows me new perspectives and points of view of my city. Unusual and unnoticed locations that allow me to photograph with a greater visual space, more independent of the permitted urban mobility restrictions.

From the skies of Lima, the city reveals its crudest contrasts.
My work seeks to document the urban inequality that has intensified with the unruly growth of the city.

OJOS PROPIOS PARTICIPATORY PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOPS THROUGHOUT PERU

Cultural diversity and informal economic activities in urban public spaces. This type of scene highlights how many people depend on informal commerce for their income, showing the importance of these elite spaces for the local economy and popular culture.