From fascination to field research
Dr Magdalena Chułek has been interested in Africa since childhood. However, her first trip to Nairobi was partly accidental. The idea arose while researching a topic for her MA thesis – the researcher knew she wanted to go into the field. She chose Kenya, where she encountered a community of Nubians, often described in literature as stateless.
It was these Nubians who captured her attention and led her to Kibera – one of the largest informal settlements in Africa. She spent over two months there, researching the identity of the local community. She admitted that even then, she had known this would not be a one-off trip.
Slum as a complex process
During the meeting Dr Chułek underlined that slums don't emerge overnight – they are the result of long-term social, economic and spatial processes. She spoke about the realities of life in Kibera and Korogocho – the districts of Nairobi where she conducted her research. It was there that she learned how residents' daily choices – for example, regarding access to water, telephone or employment – influence their survival strategies.
As she noted, conducting field research was key to her work – direct contact with residents allowed her to see their world “from the inside”, learn about their priorities and recognize their agency, often invisible from the outside.
Invisible senior citizens of the Global South
Currently, the researcher is conducting further research – this time in Bangladesh, where she focuses on older people living in slums. These are people over 60 who have been brought to cities due to natural disasters, such as river erosion.
She juxtaposes these experiences with her earlier observations from Kenya, where she also studied the lives of senior citizens in slums. Contrary to the stereotype of a caring African family, many elderly people in Kenya live alone, without the support of loved ones. This is a social group often invisible – both to neighbours and to the system. Dr Chułek underlined that in the Global South, the number of older people is expected to increase by as much as 225%, yet there are no support systems in place to meet their needs.
Bangladesh vs. Kenya – a clash of care models
While conducting comparative research in Bangladesh and Kenya, Dr Chułek observed marked differences in family and social structures. In Bangladesh, older adults are typically cared for by loved ones, which significantly impacts their living situation. In Kenya, however, loneliness and marginalisation are more common.
These observations open up new research questions: how to study old age in conditions of poverty and informality? How to compare such diverse cultural contexts? Dr Chułek admits that she still has much methodological reflection to do to approach this topic with the appropriate sensitivity and precision.
Slums of the future – a challenge for science and policy
The researcher emphasised that analysing slums was crucial in the context of urbanisation and migration. These are spaces that will continue to grow as cities in the Global South expand. At the same time, their residents – especially the elderly – often remain beyond the reach of public policies and care systems.
Dr Magdalena Chułek is an anthropologist and researcher at the University of Warsaw's Centre of Migration Research. She specialises in qualitative research. She has worked in Poland, Sudan, the United Kingdom and Tanzania. As part of a National Science Centre project, she has conducted long-term fieldwork in the Kenyan slums of Kibera and Korogocho, analysing their socio-cultural processes. She defended her doctoral dissertation at Adam Mickiewicz University in 2021.
Currently, she is working on forced migration and climate change adaptation in slums and refugee camps in East Africa and South Asia. She has been managing a project on the situation of older people in Nairobi and Dhaka since 2023.
Edit: Michał Gruda and Małgorzata Jasińska (Centre for External Relations and Social Responsibility of the University, University of Lodz)
