Human geography's longstanding preoccupation with the intersection of time and space resonates with accounts of urban informal settlements which have indirectly highlighted change over time as a key characteristic; recent postcolonial urban research explores the implications of multiple and dynamic temporalities for marginalised groups in cities of the Global South. Drawing on these debates, this paper applies an explicit focus on the temporal dimension of space in the context of urban informal settlements. Despite decades of research into the marginalised, self-built neighbourhoods which house many urban poor residents in Global Southern cities, these settlements continue to be portrayed in terms of a reductive and simplistic formal/informal dualism, meaning they are often treated as outside ‘normal’ urban considerations. Based on research in two informal settlements in Xalapa, Mexico, this paper explores residents' perceptions of change over time in order to reveal the multiple temporalities that exist within the city and across these neighbourhoods, offering alternatives to dominant marginalising discourses through the construction of identity over time, and time-bound tactics of resistance. These narratives are contextualised by constraints expressed in diverging or ambivalent accounts; but they suggest going beyond dualistic or nostalgic discourses to frame these neighbourhoods as places in the city.
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