Katrina Gulliver

The word ‘slum’ carries powerful associations. Maybe it brings to mind nineteenth-century tenements, or Dickensian poverty. Or perhaps it summons images of the poor today, living in favelas or shanty towns. Alan Mayne’s new book suggests that we think of the slum as a global injustice: not the existence of squalid living conditions, but the word ‘slum’ itself. He believes the term has been weaponised against the poor, and should not be used.