In his book Planet of Slums, Mike Davis presents us with an apocalyptic account of a future overwhelmed by congested slums resulting from large-scale migration to cities (2006). While squatter settlements have had a presence in most cities of the world, by the second half of the 20th century, the Third World has increasingly witnessed a concentration of slums. Davis’ account makes us sit up with a sense of shock as we absorb the statistics and data that he parades for the reader. The whirlwind of staggering information is meant to shake us out of our reverie, to recognize a crisis that is at once economic, social, political and ecological. In Planet of Slums, the slum is a fait accompli. The cover of the first edition provides us with a high-angle view of a Brazilian Favela.1
A decade after the publication of Davis’ book, Johnny Miller, in his award-winning photographic work titled, Unequal Scenes, captured aerial views of inequality. Miller started work initially in South Africa, but soon branched out in 2016 to use drones for the capture of striking images from around the world. These images provide high-angle views of major cities with clusters of low- income housing set against the wealthier districts. The countries where Miller took pictures included South Africa, India, Tanzania, the USA and Kenya.2 Miller stumbled upon this idea during his time as an anthropology student in South Africa. The tin shacks and their existence right next to the affluent neighbourhoods made for striking imagery. Miller says:
The images that I find the most powerful are when the camera is looking straight down—what’s known as ‘nadir view’, look- ing at the actual borders between rich and poor. Sometimes this is a fence, sometimes a road, or wetlands—with small shacks or poor houses on one side, and larger houses or man- sions on the other. ...I think the images make inequality relevant—people can see themselves reflected in the images, and it’s deeply unsettling.3
There is an uncanny resemblance in Davis’ account in the Planet of Slums and Miller’s photographs in his Unequal Scenes. Both capture broad trends in the world and focus on scale, num- bers and a desire to instil shock. This imagination of humanity on a global and planetary scale contains a desire to shift focus from a sense of place to that of the planet and is similar to what many have articulated in relation to ecological and environmental debates (Elias and Moraru 2015; Heise 2008; Parikka 2016). The key issue, however, is the deployment of an aerial perspective—a planetary view, so to speak, which assumes an essential interconnection between all humankind and the earth; a relationship that is sup- posed to transcend nations (Figures 6.1 and 6.2).
Figures 6.1 and 6.2: Johnny Miller’s drone shots of Mumbai’s inequality © Johnny Miller