Analyzing the Role of Empowerment Approach in Dealing with Informal Settlement from Experts’ Perspectives

The issue of informal settlement management has been mentioned in the country's development document as a development issue. Various approaches have been taken to manage this phenomenon in the world that the empowerment approach is one of the latest. This approach has been experienced in Iran since the late 1370s, but assessments show that the expected results were not achieved. This result raised the question for the present study whether the empowerment approach was effective in organizing informal settlements? In this study, an attempt was made to answer this question based on the opinions of experts. This research is a qualitative study and follows the method of GroundedTheory. Preliminary findings show that in order to identify the role of the empowerment approach, the roots of the problem must first be identified. As the questions and study process became more precise, the concept of migration was used as a central phenomenon and the basis for the development of the research model. Findings show that the roots of informal settlement can be traced to micro, intermediate and macro levels. Therefore, problem management strategies must be seen simultaneously at different levels. Separation of macro-origin, intermediate-destination and micro-destination strategies has been one of the research findings. The research confirmed that the empowerment approach is useful for dealing with the informal settlement phenomenon, which is applicable at the micro-destination level.