musings on Design in Development MScBUDD 2011

horizon of the possible

notes from Bangkok/what did I learn from the field trip:

1. We are in the ‘post-political’ times where coproduction really does seem like the only way to make significant change.

2. We, (people), in the end are so simple, we want security in the future. The question is how much you’re willing to risk the present to secure the future, and what your perception of that risk and the future is.

I mentioned this in an earlier post, but I will mention it again because to me it’s critical. The dual structure of NULICO and CODI is an incredibly strong force for changing the conditions of so many peoples lives. The force is in that together they have changed both people’s perception of what’s possible as well as the conditions of possibility. By conditions of possibility it is both short and long term, practically speaking people now have access to loans at low interest, and access to secure land that wasn’t available to them before, while theoretically speaking there is an opportunity to see how people could produce their lives in a different way, or form the relations of production in a different way than the neo-liberal capitalist model we are so familiar with. But why? what’s the motivation? It’s about locating things that we can be passionate about, but to be passionate about something you have to have a vision about what that something is. And to me that’s a short coming of CODI’s longer term vision, there’s too much burdern somehow on the urban poor to vision another reality on their own. Yes they have the best solutions to their immediate problems, but how can one expect them to envision (let alone desire!!!) a radically different future, to think about an alternative future is a luxury in someway, and I think as academics from secure backgrounds we’re forgetting that a bit. We conducted a game called ‘The River of Life’ with various groups of people and communities, and the results confirm this reflection, (although I admit the instructions were possibly lost in translation) the task was to put symbols of boulders or flowers as obstacles or opportunities for the past, the present, and the future. Now I was anticipating detailed futures, such as becoming a hairdresser, and the opportunity being owning your own shop, or wanting to go to school but mom needing you to watch your sibling … but instead the result was ‘collective tenure forever’, and “happiness forever” The answers really made me step back, similarly with our mapping exercises the question of what was beyond the walls of the site was equally absent on majority of people’s radar. A role of a practitioner is to broaden the horizon of the possible at the site level, but what about the siteS level, the ‘city’ level, the national level? Some networks are proving the benefits of working at the different scales but most important is how the scales influence each other? And who? Baan Mankong reminded me of these critical questions when talking about scaling up movements.

11 months ago

…unveiling some of the assumptions in Pattaya, a fresh start!

I should have posted this entry weeks ago, while we were in Bangkok. I’m still coping with time management, endeavour that has been almost unachievable during the fieldtrip, and especially after it. This post pretends to reflect some of my thoughts after working for several days with the communities in Pattaya, the site I was assigned to. It was 5 days in total, working far away from our base camp, the JL Bangkok, but since the day we arrived, we were welcomed in such a warm and friendly way, we just didn’t’t want to go back to Bangkok! Everyone was open and trying to engage with us, understanding that our presence there might help with their project somehow - in other words, they were expecting also something from us. They made us feel like “home”. We had 5 days of hard work, very long hours, some sunburns, but also had wonderful company, exciting assignments, challenging demands from the communities, vibrant dynamics, generous hosts, delicious food and enthusiastic and wonderful people. This positive atmosphere made the working flow within the group easy and enriching. As to my opinion, the exchange and complementary roles worked out really well, since it was the first time we were working together with UDP students.

First of all, we have to understand the context of the. Pattaya is 170 km south from Bangkok, and is widely known as an international tourist destination with over 1 million visitors per year. The city obviously relies primarily on its tourist-oriented economy. The first thing that surprised me is the huge disparity between the registered population of 100.000 and the estimated hidden population which is five times more. A big percentage of this hidden population is informal dwellers and migrant workers attracted by the employment opportunities this sector provides. So Pattaya city, together with the challenges of seasonal earning variations, inflated land values and environmental degradation, also has to deal with the challenges of hosting informal dwellers and a huge hidden population due to the above mentioned. The interesting thing of this situation is how Baan Mankong emerged in the City as a side- effect of the Mayor’s vision to transforming the City into a Global Tourism Centre. In line with this discourse of cleaning and greening the city to improve the image of Pattaya as an international tourist pole, low-income housing became a priority for the administration in the form of policy 14.11 “Low-income housing: garbage free and healthy living”. This policy is a compromise from the authorities to supporting Baan Mankong Programme for 15 years, with infrastructure, drainage and garbage management. Baan Mankong started with the joint effort of municipal authorities and a researcher from Pattaya University. The key factor in triggering Baan Mankong, the political commitment and implication, is shown in the close relationship between communities and the City Department of Social Welfare. Besides having 2 monthly meetings in the City Hall, Kao Noi’s temporary Community Savings Office is currently located in the City Hall and the Mayor himself was present at the recent Holy Stone ceremony.

We worked with two communities that were both relocation projects and both found cheap land in the same peri-urban semi-consolidated area of the city. The first community we worked with was Baan Nern Rodfai, the second BM project in Pattaya comprising 63 households. They are still trying to get approval from CODI and meanwhile, they have a heart contract with the landowner of the relocation site for 1/5 of the average value of the area until November. The community has faced serious organizational difficulties and this is the 3rd attempt to start the program. Finding committed leaders and people with steady income has been the most arduous. The program is aimed to the more vulnerable members and it’s enlightening to discover that people also think beyond housing: they want to be trained by NULICO to produce bricks that they can sale in the new site and then scale up to other sites. Most of migrant workers don’t see the benefits of joining BM, but I think they signify a potential demand of rental space in the new site, and therefore represent a source of income that could be reinvested in the community. There’s also a potential for flexible site schemes and house design to adapt to the diversity of the members of the new site.

The second community we worked with is Kao Noi, the pilot Baan Mankong Project in Pattaya. It is a 304 household relocation project that started 2 years ago, bringing people together from 5 different communities. They got their land at 1/4 of the average value in Pattaya due to the generosity of the landowner. What we found really interesting is the fact that they have the support of powerful external actors who play a key role in the organisational structure of the project. They’ve also had the support of NULICO, CODI and have had many visits to many other projects, both successes and failures. One of the strong points of Kao Noi is how well organised they are, and how committed and accountable their strong leaders are. They also think beyond housing: the first thing they are building is the community centre and 14 subsidized welfare houses for the most vulnerable members of the community are going to be built. If I had to say a but in Kao Noi is that I coulnd’t see real participation in the design process and this resulted in a standardised design solution.

After working with the communities, some thoughts and conclusions were discussed between us. We believe there is an opportunity to capitalize the connections with the authorities, but also with external actors from the civil society who are engaged with program and play an essential role keeping the momentum. Pattaya showed us the potential role of external actors from civil society as a catalyst for the BM and keeping the momentum forward, bypassing the binomial state-people. Another key factor is the existence of a strong support network for skills training (organizational, finance, design) and a strong exchange network to learn from other experiences, to forge people to think beyond housing. We consider that one of the burdens of the BM in these communities is that, though flexible in some aspects, BM rigid in others such as rejecting rental schemes that would be more inclusive of transient population and at the same time could be a source of income for the communities. Also giving a fix amount of money per household for both land and housing diminishes the amount they have left to build their houses, as land value in Pattaya is quite high. This might force them to go to commercial banks for loans to complete them; with the entailed dangers these have for poor people. The lack of land regulation and public land leaves them with little room for manoeuvre for land acquisition in future upgrading, and will possibly result in a displacement of communities towards cheaper land areas in the city when this mysterious philanthropic landowners disappear. If the upgrading of the 33 communities of Pattaya is done comprehensively and in an integrated manner within wider planning, there is a possibility of scaling up the programme city wise. We see a very strong asset for the BM in Pattaya in the potential shift on the perception of the informal city by the society, not seen as separate from the formal city, but as a part of it, moving beyond the dichotomy formal/informal.

11 months ago

What is Bangkok?

Bangkok is energy. Bangkok is infrastructure. Bangkok is division. Bangkok is noise, lights and tourists. Bangkok is two cities. But above all, Bangkok is people.

And it was these people that we discovered were at the heart of the Baan Mankong programme.

So what is Baan Mangkong? In the immortal words of Somsook Boonyabancha, Baan Mankong ”is a project from the city, it’s far from perfect. It’s okay, it’s alright”

She is right, of course. We identified definite over-arching issues of accessibility, motivation and momentum during our time working with the communities. However, while these were the aspects we focused on in our subsequent presentations and reports, we all came away with a much wider vision of the impacts this programme has had that simply what could be improved.

For Baan Mankong is not just a programme for the people, but it is a programme by the people. And this, I found, made all the difference. This meant that the programme not only fostered the people’s ability to initiate change, but also their passion to do so. Most of the time, it tapped into and nurtured the passion that is already there. Yes, there were still issues of motivation to join the programme, of the short-sightedness, of the inability to see beyond the risks to the benefits without concrete and visible proof, but the passion and drive was most definitely and concretely there.

It comes down again to people. I know many will say that Baan Mankong goes way beyond people. It is financial mechanisms, it is politics, it is participatory design, it is negotiating power. Yes, Baan Mankong is all these things. But these things cannot occur without the involvement of people. As many mechanisms can be put in place as you want, but unless the passion of those they are meant to affect exists as well, nothing is going to happen. Conversely, if no platforms exist, but the people are motivated, they will usually find a way.

The brilliant thing about Baan Mankong is its ability to recognise the desire for change and transformation already existing on the ground, and through its emphasis on the collective, bring these desires into one large, powerful, energetic mass. The programme emphasises the role of the people as the creators, not receivers, of urban change and transformation.

And the ball is already rolling, and rolling quickly. As an example, in the district I had the pleasure to work in, Chatuchak, had quite a few communities that were working on their own initiatives and plans. And while they were aware of each other’s movements (a few communities were hoping to use a completed Phase One in Lang Witthayalaikru Chankaseam to help their own initiatives move forward), I do not think they were aware of the sheer numbers in the district that were pushing for this change until our presentations at CODI. We asked all the representatives from Chatuchak to stand up, and then they were able to see just how many people were there. People who were already involved and who were moving towards the same transformation they were. And at this particular meeting, it went even further. With absolutely no prompting from CODI, a contact list was being passed around all community members in attendance, no matter which part of the city (or great Bangkok area, in terms of Pattaya) they were from. This collective force of change, the people, is amassing.

Baan Mankong still has some issues with accessibility to the programme. And motivation to join the programme is still missing within some members of the population. But Bann Mankong is allowing the people of the city to become their own force to shape and change their futures and surroundings. And it is doing this by providing support for the strength and capacities that already exist with the urban poor.

Baan Mankong is a programme that helps enable the people to create a space for themselves to have a say in “What is Bangkok?”

11 months ago

Scaling down versus Scaling up

The fieldtrip experience allowed us to interact with and see up close a possible scenarios for the cities of the third millennium. During the year in the academic sphere, critical analysis often brought moments of discouragement and pessimism seeing the incapacity of spatial design solutions to deal with issues such as poverty and informality in an effective way. The work of CODI and the Baan Mankong program has been teaching us a possible way to imagine our cities differently. This new imagination is driven by peoples demand and ability to transform, enhancing their ability to decide for their future, change it, and to be active citizens.

It is an example of how a special program in a national department can have the potential to change the condition of the urban poor, without being interrupted by unnecessary bureaucratic and political mechanisms brought from national and international agencies. In this way there is little space for us, as international practitioners , to be part of this change since we come from a specific context and culture. We had the opportunity of being part of this mechanism as a student who have been asked to study the CODI’s work, analyze and reflect on it, and perhaps providing a moment of reflection for the organization by bringing different stakeholders together. Our presence created an occasion to keep high the interest and generate discussion on alternatives.

Since we went back to London several reflections raised in my mind. Mainly, after being a part of the field trip experience and after interacting with people on the ground, I do not think that the BMK program is reimagining a new city on a wider scale. While there is definitely a potential for changing spatial production in the city – in terms of house design, neighborhood upgrading – the change in institution and policy is not happening via this program. I would argue that perhaps it is not in the will neither of the community nor of the program. The scaling up of the program is an issue that should be complemented also to its opposite risk of scaling-down or in a better word “collapsing”. What it might be important is not only looking on how expand it, but also how it will sustain itself in a long term, financially and locally.

Reality within the BMK

During the field we had a default tendency to look on how the program can reach a wider scale, influence the policy around the city and its decision making process; changing the status quo and the top down approach and looking for ways to achieve a structural transformation. The question is if the communities’ capacity and will follow this research direction, and if there is too much expectation, especially in the academic environment, for their actions, going beyond their needs and their understanding. Hence, if the program is based on their will, there is in the root a difficulty to open wider discussion.
Furthermore Bangkok for me had several stratifications, both physical and social, with historical and cultural origin, combined with the global flows of capital that fragment the city in big scale. These stratifications and fragmentation are difficult to contest. Within this fragmentation, especially spatially, peoples design demand is bringing a “cleanification” or “purification” of informal areas, following a homogenizing aesthetic system. There is not space for contestation but space for improvement, starting from a political program where the community play their role based on their will, interest and consensus to the program and their leaders. However, the Baan Mankong program, even in a different level, is showing a different way of producing space, which instead of contesting the “traditional” one it is adjusting to the existing space. This is especially the case where land is owned by public entities such as the Crown Property Bureau.

Visiting the sites showed us that many people had joined the program with the specific goal of physical upgrading, specially related to housing and infrastructure improvement. This keeps the people together around a tangible and common interest. The spatial dimension becomes in this way an end, a final product that in some occasion reflected a mere replication of the same typologies. Despite this tangible improvement in the people life, the specific and too narrow down focus on the house dimension have some implications, losing the relation with the urban context, within communities and their surroundings. Furthermore it became a mathematical proportion, in some case the re-blocking schemes have been lead by an equal subdivision of the land in plots according to the number of the households allocated in same hose typology.

After the community upgrading, people start to see the needs for common spaces, social amenities, welfare, education, training and income generation. Communities start to have an active role in the society seeing that a change can be in their hands. But where is the limit of this improvements? Where the communities and people can arrive to reach this issues that goes beyond the specificity of the case?

A horizontal scaling up through a stronger network among communities and the involvement of external actors is the line that has to be followed, perhaps using the existing CDF’s and the CODI network. Moreover, the BMK should be a starting point, enabling the communities to solve their issues by themselves, expanding their influence, creating their own saving bank, and being mobilized. However, in some communities the network is not so effective as it should be, the communities, particularly their leaders, are focus in their specific issues related to a specific stage of the program, looking in short term solutions, not having time and the will to share knowledge, problems and opportunities.

Looking to the future

The burden that the communities have to deal with can become too heavy, in particular when the individuality start to emerge both in the short and long term. In the first one the individual needs and aspirations sometimes contrast with the community goals. In addition, the common idea of equal subdivision or the necessity to readjust to a smaller land parcel for a benefit to the common (example in the re-blocking schemes, families that has big houses or plot or rental earnings) can threaten the success of the program and bring skepticism as well as hesitancy to join. However, when there is a common aspiration the program is almost endemic and necessary that someone has to reach a compromise and deal with some disadvantage.

It might be more problematic the emerging issue of individuality in a long term, in particular when the loan will be paid and families and cooperatives will become owners. in some cases, in particular in public land, the best agreement usually is 30 years lease for the land and single ownership for the houses usually after a 15 years repayment. In this cases the is the risk that people interest become individual, losing the collective action that remain a formal cooperative is renting or owning a piece. What happen to the single ownership if the collective lease is not renew after 30 years? How can a cooperative stay cohesive and steady in a such long term, avoiding contrast among its owners and members that can also change and move or sell their house, avoiding the risk of dissolution? What it will happen in 30/40 years to a cooperative, born sometimes quickly to deal with bureaucratic purposes, that will own a land in the middle of Bangok? Might happen rather than a scale-up a collapse of the system?

11 months ago

Looking Back and Thinking Ahead: a post-Bangkok reflection

“Have landed safely in Bangkok.
Smells and looks like Karachi.
Love, Sarah”

This was the text message I sent my parents upon arriving in Bangkok on 27^th April, 2012. The message marked the first of many assumptions I made about the city over the next few weeks.

In an involuntary attempt to adjust and orient to my new surroundings, my mind kept making parallels to places in my memory. My initial observations of Bangkok – the balmy breeze, the sound and chaos of traffic jams, the highway and road networks, the splintered economic development – reminded me of Karachi. Of course, in a few days I started discovering the city more closely; I started talking to its citizens, started understanding its currency, tasting its food, and noticing its varied urban charm. Yes, in many ways – characteristic of Asian cities – Bangkok was like Karachi, but not quite. It managed to set itself apart and soon I began interacting with a city like none other I have visited before.

Riding the canal taxi boats, the Sky Train, the Subway, the tuk-tuk’s, and walking down the serpentine alleys of Bangkok’s inner markets, I discovered a city bustling with something to offer for everyone. It had an old world oriental charm contrasted against a modern, glamorous, and sometimes decadent mix of entertainment. And yet, behind this world-class cosmopolitan semblance, lay also a city struggling with the inequitable consequences of urbanization. Informal settlements stuck out like cavities in an urban landscape fast succumbing to market pressures of speculative land and real estate development. The urban poor could be seen striving to make ends meet while the demand for housing and healthy living environments increased all around us.
Studying this demand and Bangkok’s ability to address it was our main task as student practitioners in the field.

We had our assumptions – conscious or unconscious- from the start: about social transformation, effective development, our ability to create change, and the purpose of the field trip.

As we began visiting the various informal neighborhoods and started talking to community leaders from the Baan Mankong program, it became apparent to me that my time in Bangkok was going to change my perspective on how I read and understood a city. A city is more than its sights and smells, a city is made of its people and our trip to Bangkok under the auspices of CODI showed us just how important collaborative people centered processes are for a city.
By the fourth day in Bangkok, I realized that I had been given a unique opportunity to witness and experience a dynamic social process that consisted of innovative urban triumphs and inspirational personal journeys. The staff at CODI, ACHR, the Thai students, and the residents of the member communities all started forming a bigger picture for me. And yes, this picture was definitely not like Karachi anymore.

The people of Bangkok that hosted us represented the city’s resilience against the tyranny of capitalist urbanism – these individuals and their collective efforts symbolized, for me, an important quality within Bangkok. Personally, this quality was the peoples openness to new forms of knowledge and the willingness to share. They recognized that a change is needed to address the income and quality of life inequalities that are present in a city like Bangkok, moreover the urban poor and the organizations engaging with them were beginning to address critical issues of dysfunction occurring in rapidly urbanizing cities. The more I interacted with members of the Baan Mankong, I realized that they were citizens that were embracing an opportunity for empowerment. However, there is a big picture and there is a small picture —- wherever I looked in Bangkok there are lessons to be learnt. This willingness to share, this embracing of social and political empowerment was definitely happening, but I began to question how widely effective it was. I was aware of the numbers – that the program had worked with 1,010 communities in 226 towns and cities, in 69 out of 76 provinces, involving 54,000 households. But in a city rapidly growing, in a country consistently developing, how significant were these numbers? The program markets itself as a revolutionary transformation that is spreading rapidly across Thailand, but there remain many people who are either incapable or unwilling to be part of Baan Mankong.
The Baan Mankong Program is “far from perfect, it’s okay” —said Somsook Boonyabancha offering a very poignant clarification for policy makers and planners who are often tuned towards making ‘perfect’ solutions that work well across institutional scales. This, in practice, cannot always be the case. The on ground realities are different, people’s needs change, and life cannot be standardized according to the delivery requirements of a social welfare scheme by the government.

This emerging question of scale has been one of my main reflections following our return from Baan Mankong. After learning about the successes and challenges that the communities need to work on, after unpacking the potential of the program according to our lenses, an important and pertinent question remains:

How do we scale up a collaborative, multi-stakeholder, negotiation based housing delivery program?

After writing a 186 page report on our experience and lessons from the field with 9 other colleagues from BUDD, I still cannot answer this question, but I am glad that Bangkok helped me ask the question in the first place.

This is how Bangkok is different from Karachi. It may smell similar and echo some of the regional aesthetic, but it is a city that is beginning to ask important questions. Karachi was asking some of these questions during the 1970’s, but not on a unified platform such as CODI. The strength of the Baan Mankong and CODI lies not only in their unique approach to collaboration and empowering of people, but also in the ability to foster and host different forms of knowledge exchange. Cities all over the world often face similar problems, because as humans we create similar issues where ever we are, but the way in which we address them and battle the odds is what sets us apart. This is what gives people in cities their own voice – the people of Bangkok are beginning to find their voice through Baan Mankong and CODI. This voice may not be loud right now, but perhaps one day it will be loud, effective, and exemplary for people facing similar issues across the global south.

Some additional thoughts:

In my personal opinion, land ownership, real estate development, and speculative urban planning remain the issues that policy makers need to critically analyze when catering to the rising demand of urban poverty. Flexibility on land development plans, re-adjusting national and municipal approaches towards capital generation, and focusing on user based spatial reconfiguration in cities can be the beginnings of large scale reform. A serious and coordinated symposium on the future vision of a city is needed so that programs such as Baan Mankong can negotiate their position and role in urban development. The bridging of communication gaps – whether they be socio-economic and/or institutional – needs to be facilitated either by agencies such as CODI and the NHA. I would like to argue that a crucial room for policy maneuver can emerge in the gaps revealed by such a multi-stakeholder dialogue.

11 months ago

Community Architects as part of reflection on Baan Mankong

Turning our minds back to our thoughts of Bangkok and the Baan Mankong programme before we left on the fieldtrip makes it so tempting to compare, to compare everything. Pre and post fieldtrip. A vs Z.

It’s this hindsight-mania that makes it a mistake to see this stage of our understanding as the clearest viewpoint from which to look down and see that experience laid beneath us, to see the path we took and mistakes we made; the glaringly obvious - now obvious, the questions never asked or answered…we can only make making visible that which we felt we saw, or didnt.

Before departing for Bangkok, I think we all found aspects of the CODI programme a bit of a mystery with regard to the literature we could get our hands on; trying to find out more about private investment in housing or the state sector, or the (to me anyway!) backseat drivers of the Community Architects.

Okay, we knew they were there somewhere, they had a website. A pivotal part of the CODI run programme to make “People (as)the subject of development” (CAN Community Handbook II, ACHR 2011) but their exact role, and even their number, was a bit unclear. This changed as soon as we entered the context of CODI and the Baan Mankong (BMK); within a day we had been introduced to members of our site groups that formed part of a movement of community architects in South East Asia (from Nepal, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam as well as Thailand), something that was detailed further through a seminar on our second day at CODI. I was really impressed by the parallel integration of their work to that of CODI, and realised they, the Community Architects Network (CAN, with support from ACHR) was something much bigger.

The breadth of the vision of programmes involving community architects such as BMK is astonishing; it doesnt focus on how you build your house, but how the local branches out to connect with the regional and so on, to create a new quality of life. Moving away from the needs of the individual to the possibilities of the multiple - its something that got me thinking, and of course…comparing.

This ‘active role in creating places for living’ is really brought to life in the CAN Community Handbook publication (Volume II, 2011; part of a series of ACHR handbooks for Housing by People); a great accumulation of the work of the CAN coalition full of examples, activities, tools and workshop techniques used for mapping and planning spaces and futures. From looking at this work, the ‘Tips’ section seemed the most representative of their approach and that of the Baan Mankong, “Even if some persons may not feel like participating..”:

Make it easy and fun by letting people be the subject in the working process.

Work in small groups so that people can easily discuss and share ideas.

To dream, draw and discuss.

Find collective ideas and consensus from the ideas of the small sub group.

Make it visible and tangible.

A natural leader always emerges through the working process, just wait, listen and observe.

Practical information and solutions are always with the people.

Trust building is the key of forming small groups.

No need for one hero, one leader.

Let people be active by identifying and distributing the right tasks to the right persons.

For any decision making, the criteria for the decision must come from the collective ideas of people.

All the above taken from the CAN Community Handbook (Version II; 2011. ACHR)

Looking at the strengths of Baan Mankong and community architects: Creating netwroks, building understanding and collaboration; it could be said that there were parts of the process that both could help improve, especially the post-construction phases of the programme. Its touched upon briefly by CAN, but something that could be helped by the continuation of strengthening realtionshops already in existence so that communities can go further, by themselves - as it was evident in some of the areas visited in Bangkok that a ‘post-construction drift’ was at play once individuals houses etc were completed - all contributing to a terrible loss of cohesion in what up until then had been a totally collaborative process.

Minor faults in what at first glance seemed a singular scheme, but with reflection becomes clearer that there are as many branches of this tree as there are roots.

With many thanks to all the community architects I met involved in the programme, but especially Sok Le and Danak from Cambodia.

I’d advise anyone interested in the work of community architects to look up the CAN facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/CommunityArchitectsNetwork/info

or ACCA/ACHR related articles such as this:

http://web.me.com/mauriceleonhardt/ACHR_2/Blog/Entries/2011/11/15_CAN_-_Community_Architects_Network_-_Update.html

11 months ago

murmur and our very long version acknowlegement

Ever since come back from Bangkok we had been fully occupied with the presentation and report until finally handed in the work last Friday. For me, now it is time to rethink what I have learnt and done in this field trip.

First of course it is the experience gained in the field, both working with ‘real people’ but to observing as well as getting information using my own senses. To be frank, even now, when I recall the memory of Bangkok, I could still feel the pressure brought by the flood of information that easily make me drown. Of course time is needed to digest everything.

The other memory that I would treasure owing to the field trip is the experience to work with so many people at one time. Though depressed sometimes as working in this huge group, we could not reach consensus easily, I could always feel the passion brought by every one in the group about contributing to the work and see the sparks brought by the interactions of different ideas. It is very interesting to share opinions with people grown up in different countries as our value and education are diverse. The curiosity of knowing what other people would react to the same topic and my ideas always hold the torch for me while I was stuck in the exhausted group work. But as we know each other better, I feel the group work was getting better and better with the time passed by. I would like to thank everyone that I work with. Thank you Group E!

Finally, I have some words for the next year students. There is no need to be nervous to work with the community as they are really nice and warm. But the time would fly away faster in the field, so while you could prepare yourself with a comfortable mood, objectives and materials that you need to use should be ready before you departure.

Owing to the word limitation in the report, the acknowledgment I wrote was totally transformed into a very brief one. But still, I would like to present here to thank every one that help us with sincerity and memorize this fantastic experience as well.

Acknowledgement (long version)

We would not be able to have this fantastic experience without the help of:

All the kind support from CODI, the staffs are very friendly and the food is amazing.

Thank you Pi Jin, your warm welcome help us to settle down in the unfamiliar country.

Thank you Somsook Boonyabancha, though we do not have enough time to hear more from your condensed wisdom, we really appreciate your sapiential speech and the kindness you show to our wild thoughts and ideas.

Thank you Supitcha Nong, for hosting and translating the meeting and making sure that we could move on smoothly.

Thank you Nattawut Usavagovitwong and Wijitbusaba Ann Marome, your presentations set the scene for us.

Thank you Kitti Patpongpiboon, your amazing speech extend our knowledge to the unfamiliar

We would also give our thanks to all the community architects and Thai students that help us in the field, without their help, the communication would not be possible.

There is a special thank you we need to give to all the people from communities, no matter what different roles they are playing, community leaders, representatives from NULICO, or normal members of a community, we do think that their hospitality and kindness to share all the information as well as knowledge with us are the most precious memory in this field trip.

We need to give a sincere thank you to all the DPU staffs and alumni that guide us in the field; their experience and knowledge help us in arming ourselves to face the problems and difficulties.

Thank you Anna Schulenburg, it is your considerate care that makes our trip much easier.

Thank you Barbara Lipietz, your comment opens another door for our BUDD horizons.

Thank you Benjamin Leclair, from you we see one of the successful model of the future development of our BUDD students.

Thank you Camillo Boano, your insightful critique always drives us back to the right road.

Thank you Cassidy Johnson, your focus in disaster prevention always reminds us to think about the sustainability of any current decision-making.

Thank you Ruth Mcleod, thanks to you that people like us from architecture and urban planning background start to realize the importance of relating the technique to the real world by having an eye on the financial solutions.

We would also give our thanks to the other DPU staff, though they did not accompany us, what we got from them guide us all the way along this journey.

Thank you Jorge Fiori, your idea about scaling up always lights the candle in our mind.

Thank you Alex Apsan Frediani, the participatory action plan was mentioned again and again in the discussion and gave us lots of ideas about the participatory workshop.

Thank you William Hunter, your patient tutorial was always missed by us in the field.

And there are lot people that we would not be able to thank one by one here, but it is the effort of every one of them that leads to the realization of this field trip and this report that now presents to you.

At last, we would like to thank all the BUDD and UDP students, it is with you that this trip is so memoriable.

11 months ago

After the field trip to Bangkok, and after many discussions, in the group we decided to base our analysis and strategies around the concept of ‘boundaries’. We recognised the physical and social transformation that the program – Baan Mankong – has triggered in many parts of the city, and concluded that the program had very good conditions in place to keep supporting the development and upgrading of low income communities in Thailand. Nevertheless, we recognised there were several boundaries that were preventing some initiatives to get the attention needed to improve the quality of the upgrading processes, or to expand the spectrum of social transformation in the city.

Some of the boundaries – the physical ones – were easy to recognise, and many others have noticed and studied them. One of the reports from BUDD last year was built around the concept of “depocketisation”. It explores among other issues, ways to integrate a city that has grown around pockets of development sharing only roads or canals that connect them to each other. From visiting Bangkok we also identified an obvious division line present in many parts of the city; the elevated infrastructure. Apart from creating barriers between neighbours in the city, it also marks a vertical division between the rich and the poor in Bangkok. Using this infrastructure, to move faster in the city, has a cost that many cannot afford. Both the sky train and the express ways are not designed for the majority of the population, the low income citizens. Thinking about this socio economic disconnection, in a city with a strong culture of tolerance and solidarity, inspired us to propose strategies to restore the communication and create interest on working with each other in pro of a more inclusive city. Having said this, it is important to mention that it was hard to come up with ideas that could be brave, creative, going towards our definition of transformation, and at the same time grounded on reality; on the reality we managed to be part of for at least two weeks. We concluded that our strategies could be bold and realistic only if the interest of the different parts was included forming alliances - just like the way CODI currently works. We felt it was important to create opportunities where the low income communities could show to the city their potential as actors in the transformation of the city. I believe with our strategies we are not asking too much to the people from those communities. We know it may not be of their main interests to be heard at the city level and make an impact on the planning of it. However, we know from the experience in the field that the good relation with landlords and the district is happening at different extents and can be explored and strengthened around the benefits of a common project; the shared space.

From my view, there are two strategies in particular that address the reconfiguration of partnerships. One is “Building the common” and the specific actions related to common spaces outside the community, and the second one is “Reconfiguring relationships around land”. In the first one, the objective is for the communities to think outside their physical boundaries and recognise the surroundings and the district as something they could also influence. At the same time, the objective is for shift the perception from the city towards the urban poor; from communities in need to participants of the development in the city. Through a competition and grants, communities are asked to propose a project, an activity or an intervention that could improve the life of many in their district or surrounding area, not only from the people in their communities. It should be something to be built outside the community or at least clearly open to the city. The ideas could go from pedestrian bridges up to community centres or parks, depending on what the community consider as priority. Ideally this should not interfere negatively with the upgrading programs inside the community. Perhaps, it is managed through a different type of loans, or grants that otherwise were not designated to housing.

In the second one “Reconfiguring relationships around land”, we saw the opportunity to understand the value of land in a different way. The issue of land was not easy to analyse because the situation in the sites we visited was not as conflictive as we had imagined; either you have land or not, and in that case someone – CODI or even the District – will help you negotiate to get some land somewhere. However, there is a question in the back of my mind since Colin Marx’s lecture about land; ‘how is it possible to value land in a different way?’ And in the case of many places in Bangkok, what is the value of land for someone who owns a house/flat but will never own the land where the building is? How to build a stronger link to the site that can prevent the possibility of eviction? Perhaps land itself can be the basis to build a stronger relationship between the landlord and the community. We proposed a new way of land sharing where the cooperative and the landlord form a partnership to build and manage a project, which can generate profit but at the same time support social services needed in the community. This idea could be attractive for public landowners who currently run some welfare programs in their sites. Having the cooperative as a ‘partner in business’ can shift the dynamics in the relations, bringing more confidence to the people and sharing responsibilities between the parts. Also, for the community it could be a way to secure their stay in the land for longer, since they are sharing with the owner more than land, they are now sharing a project – in some cases a building. A physical outcome of this partnership could be a mid-rise building with 60% of commercial units to rent (housing, offices and shops) and 40% of social uses such as affordable renting units, community centre, nursery, market, among others. Through the creation of these alliances, we are not solving the problem of ownership of land – because we felt that was not a problem for many people renting land. However, for those living there, gaining a new partner for the development of their site is a fact that can influence the way people value the land.

The experience of the trip and the exercise has been a unique opportunity to critically understand some of the complexities of collective upgrading initiatives for the urban poor. The context was sometimes surprising, sometimes shocking but incredible interesting and rich in content. Although I cannot imagine when and where, I am convinced I will be recalling this experience and comparing it with others in different contexts. I imagine myself trying to find somewhere else the potential for collective people-centred alliances that CODI, Bangkok and its people showed to us.

11 months ago

$Scaling : Waves Working In Phase After four months of intensive group work, to learn from the Baan Mankong programme in Bangkok and seven months of total work in groups for the BUDD masters course, the practical nature of collaborative working and the often extraordinary capacity of the ‘collective’ has been demonstrated to us first hand by this intensive experience, in a way that could never be done with just theory alone. I expect that we have all experienced the almost subconscious experimentation with our team role, our behaviour, instinctively trying to gauge how to make the best of the opportunities as you are able to understand them from your perspective and with your unique combination of personality, skills and knowledge, strengths and weaknesses. By trying to find ways or ‘strategies’ to make the best of others, each member no longer becomes a ‘set fraction’ of a total group contribution, they become part of something different and more dynamic, where ideas and processes are able to change, challenge, adapt and grow. Our group observed that the process of social transformation in Bangkok was not a two dimensional phenomena, but a complex, diverse, misshapen, unique and beautiful interconnected patchwork of flux and change. How does one attempt to ‘scale up’ social transformation? And what is the meaning of scaling up in this context? To make sense of this, our group, sought to bridge the gaps, or ‘fill in’ processes of social transformation via strategies to build strategic alliances, networking actors with shared interests in order to create opportunities for synergy, particularly at an intermediate scale. In an earlier blog, I referred to the notion of ripples or vibrations mentioned by Somsook Boonyabancha as a metaphor for the spread, transfer and translation of knowledge and structural change “vibrations affect everybody” she explained. Upon completion of the group’s final Bangkok report, it occurred to me that a parallel metaphor could be applied to our conclusions… In physics, ripples or vibrations are conceptualised as waves. If three waves for example, that are in synergy with each other (known as ‘in phase’) converge, they produce a single wave of three times the magnitude, where as when equal waves that are slightly ‘out of phase’ interact, the result is a single wave without this intensity. If the waves are exactly out of phase, then the energy of the wave cancels out and the water surface remains still. Similarly, here I conceive of Bangkok as a vast lake with hundreds of waves or processes of different size, frequency, magnitude and duration, continually being made and their impacts spreading across the water. By aiming to encourage these existing processes to work ‘in phase’, (using time, scale and typology of the processes strategically) then the magnitude of their energy will join for maximum effect, creating something all together different and more transformative than the sum of their parts. In this way, by working with existing forces, perhaps the impact and transformative nature of existing processes can travel further and deepen across the realm of space, culture, economics, and politics and across sectors, scale and time. Perhaps, fundamentally, the first role of the practitioner is simply to ‘dive in’ and start from reality, finding ways for processes to work in synergy for mutual gain to make the best of what is already happening.$

Scaling : Waves Working In Phase

After four months of intensive group work, to learn from the Baan Mankong programme in Bangkok and seven months of total work in groups for the BUDD masters course, the practical nature of collaborative working and the often extraordinary capacity of the ‘collective’ has been demonstrated to us first hand by this intensive experience, in a way that could never be done with just theory alone.

I expect that we have all experienced the almost subconscious experimentation with our team role, our behaviour, instinctively trying to gauge how to make the best of the opportunities as you are able to understand them from your perspective and with your unique combination of personality, skills and knowledge, strengths and weaknesses. By trying to find ways or ‘strategies’ to make the best of others, each member no longer becomes a ‘set fraction’ of a total group contribution, they become part of something different and more dynamic, where ideas and processes are able to change, challenge, adapt and grow.

Our group observed that the process of social transformation in Bangkok was not a two dimensional phenomena, but a complex, diverse, misshapen, unique and beautiful interconnected patchwork of flux and change.

How does one attempt to ‘scale up’ social transformation? And what is the meaning of scaling up in this context? To make sense of this, our group, sought to bridge the gaps, or ‘fill in’ processes of social transformation via strategies to build strategic alliances, networking actors with shared interests in order to create opportunities for synergy, particularly at an intermediate scale.

In an earlier blog, I referred to the notion of ripples or vibrations mentioned by Somsook Boonyabancha as a metaphor for the spread, transfer and translation of knowledge and structural change “vibrations affect everybody” she explained. Upon completion of the group’s final Bangkok report, it occurred to me that a parallel metaphor could be applied to our conclusions…

In physics, ripples or vibrations are conceptualised as waves. If three waves for example, that are in synergy with each other (known as ‘in phase’) converge, they produce a single wave of three times the magnitude, where as when equal waves that are slightly ‘out of phase’ interact, the result is a single wave without this intensity. If the waves are exactly out of phase, then the energy of the wave cancels out and the water surface remains still.

Similarly, here I conceive of Bangkok as a vast lake with hundreds of waves or processes of different size, frequency, magnitude and duration, continually being made and their impacts spreading across the water. By aiming to encourage these existing processes to work ‘in phase’, (using time, scale and typology of the processes strategically) then the magnitude of their energy will join for maximum effect, creating something all together different and more transformative than the sum of their parts. In this way, by working with existing forces, perhaps the impact and transformative nature of existing processes can travel further and deepen across the realm of space, culture, economics, and politics and across sectors, scale and time. Perhaps, fundamentally, the first role of the practitioner is simply to ‘dive in’ and start from reality, finding ways for processes to work in synergy for mutual gain to make the best of what is already happening.

11 months ago View high resolution

Paper versus reality

During the preparations for this fieldtrip I walked around for a long time with the question of what our work would entail and how it would benefit CODI’s way of working as most of the impressions I had were of an organisation that had a clear idea of what their goals are and how to (successfully) implement their strategies on the ground.

In the field we finally got the opportunity to witness the work of CODI and if the BM program really is what it claims to be: demand driven and community centred.

In all honesty I have to say that the program largely impressed me, but small cracks within the BM started to show during the work and conversations in the field. A range of power and social dynamics within the communities became clear, especially in Pattaya where communities seemed to show several exceptions to the general working methods of the BM program: several communities came together on one relocation site, community leaders came from outside the community, business people and local authorities were the main triggers in the process of joining the BM program, … making me question how demand driven the process is in reality or if what we witnessed in Pattaya was just a unique case as the program was still very new in this part of Thailand.

But re-joining our report group soon made clear that there was no one standard approach of Baan Mangkong. As several people pointed out after the fieldwork: there are as many BMs as there are projects. This flexibility has made it possible for BM to reach out to a large number of communities, although in some cases it does seem to overlook some groups, or faces some challenges in communication and organisation among and between communities.

I would say the words of Somsook Boonyabancha capture what we saw in the field: ‘It is not perfect, but it’s ok’. And in this world, is that not what we should try to work with? Nothing will ever be perfect, will ever have the capability to answer to everyone’s needs and desires, but an ‘ok’ program seems to be an amazing step forward from which many organisations could learn. But saying that, I do have to return to the question I asked myself before: how can a program so community based be implemented in other context which are so focused on individual needs.

11 months ago

Some thoughts on scaling up

Finally, we experienced Baan Mankong on the field, speaking with the people who make it on the ground. Actually what we witnessed was a huge transformation process going on beyond Baan Mankong: before, after and in parallel with it. We saw communities that rebuilt their neighbourhoods without even asking for a loan from CODI, and others that used their savings to create community enterprises and funds covering health, death, education; we met an architect that did beautiful and successful interventions in Bangkok slums, and had never heard of Baan Mankong before; we talked to people that realized their dream of owning a house thanks to the NHA-supplied flats; we knew communities actively pushing against upgrading, and State authorities promoting it… and so on. It soon became clear that Baan Mankong was our entry point to Bangkok, but not necessarily the only or main focus of our attention.

The transformation I observed in Bangkok was a big mess of a process, going on at various scales, led by so many people, not always towards the same direction and often out of synch. So, when we started our discussion about scaling up, I was not sure that was exactly the point. Why think about amplifying the process, when the key could just lie in a deeper synergy among its parts? This sinergy, we thought, might project transformation much further. With my group, we started our discussion on scaling up starting from this consideration. We further refined our thought, and tried to schematize it as follows.

A process of transformation increases its impact following three main axes, that we defined as size, time, and magnitude. Size includes the number of people involved and the geographical area touched by the process. Bringing in more and more people and expanding the territorial action range is what is conceived as scaling up in its most common (and reductive) meaning. However, long-term transformation won’t be achieved if the process doesn’t produce a change capable to evolve and reproduce itself; in other words, it has to sustain itself over time. For what concerns magnitude, things are a bit more complicated - we weren’t even so sure about this word. It refers to the extent to which a transformative process impacts the lives of people, or, to be more schematic, to which dimensions of transformation it covers. We defined four dimensions: cultural, economic, spatial, and political. If transformation occurs only in some of these dimensions, it will be only partial.

Clearly these axes are interrelated and the advancement on each one of them influences the others. For instance, a programme that is implemented steadily for ten years is more likely to influence more people and more dimensions of transformation than one with a duration of just one year; a programme that involves millions of people will probably produce a more durable social change than one focused on a few individuals; and a shift in cultural, economic and political relations will plausibly shape the spatiality of the city and affect a huge number of people. However, none of them is sufficient in itself to achieve transformation.

At this point, our focus shifted on these interrelations. We kind of agreed that, in order to achieve transformation, a process has to advance comprehensively on all three axes, and each advancement drags forward the others. The basis of our strategies we devised, then, has been to address this question.

11 months ago View high resolution

“If people aren’t changing, things aren’t changing. So things change when people change. Upgrading, the way we see it, is a process in which a group of people are changing because they begin to believe in their own power and see that they are not different than all the other citizens in the city. […] If a whole group of people starts believing in their own power, energy and ability –this is upgrading” (Boonyabancha, 2005).

While the winter in London started to decline and the spring loomed for a few days, we started studying the Baan Mankong (BM) programme. It was almost four months ago. Now, the rainy days indicate that the winter is still over UK, and the spring days have been shorter and faker than we thought. These four months have had different phases. From a theoretical approach defining concepts, to a fieldtrip in communities on the heart of Bangkok; from presentations about first appreciations based on readings, to the production of a report that aims to be coherent and portraits both the analytical approach and the lived experience.

In this context, it is not easy to summarize an overview of the process and learning. On the contrary, it is so easy to get lost in the specificity of an interesting programme, in the details of the places visited, in the amazing people that we met, in the particularities of Thailand. During the last two weeks, our efforts were focused precisely on that: to deconstruct and describe the main learning of the fieldtrip, in order to extract the knowledge that can scale outof Bangkok to our practice and reflection beyond the course. Curiously, the main learning that I can extract is precisely about scale: as in my own process of learning, there is knowledge that can scale from the Baan Mankong programme to wider processes of transformation. I would like to share the summary of our reflection about scaling-up, as stated by my group in our report:

We understand the scaling up of a transformative process as advancement along three axes.

Axis one refers to size: in order to scale up, the process needs to involve a wider number of people and actors and to cover larger portions of territory. This coincides with a more conventional understanding of scaling up.

The second axis represents time: it refers to the process’ capacity to reproduce, evolve and sustain itself over time. We will refer to this as scaling on.

The third axis is about the magnitude of the process: namely, to which extent it covers the four dimensions of transformation (political, economic, spatial, and cultural) impacting the lives of people in a more fundamental way beyond upgrading. We will refer to this as scaling across.

Clearly, the axes are deeply interrelated, and advancement on one of them influences the others.

However, radical social transformation can’t be achieved without a comprehensive advancement along these three axes. As previously explained, we believe this can only be achieved within a space of collaboration between “bottom-up” mobilization and “top-down” reforms. We will refer to this collaborative process as scaling out and scaling in.

This is my main learning. Ok, maybe at first sight it doesn’t look very concrete, but studying the BM programme it appeared so clearly. Scaling processes of transformation implies drawing strategies that: involve more people and institutions (scaling up); sustain on the time (scaling on); impact the cultural, political, economic and spatial dimensions (scaling across); and occur within a process of collaboration of different sectors (scaling out and scaling in). Simple. Great.

I think that the main challenges are in the capacity to reflect such processes of transformation into the space. The gap between the cultural, economic and political transformation, and the space produced, represents a main fissure. In the course of scaling across described above, the dimension of space is probably the more problematic. This challenges our capacity to build strategies able to imprint the socio-economic transformations into space. Even in an amazing program as BM, this gap persists. In any attempt to replicate transformations as presented for Boonyabancha, along with the “people’s change”, it is necessary to design systems able to engage space production with socio-economic transformation. The space, as one dimension of this rubric, will inform the development of socio-economic alliances, in a reciprocal relation that can be overlooked.

11 months ago View high resolution

Back to London, what is next?

Coming back to London, we had so many things to do, a lot of group works, presentation and the final report! There are too many things in our mind. How can Bangkok increase the involvement of poorer citizens, especially those who living in informal conditions? How to break the boundaries in term to bridge the gaps? What are the boundaries to address that possible to scale up Baan Mankong?

We consider the boundaries; the ideas of the boundaries are based on our experiences of urban poor in Bangkok, especially in the observation of spatial disengagement, during the field trip. We see the boundaries significantly restrict the program from successful operating of upgrading program, which is Baan Mankong. However, the boundaries that we see are not just physical, but also socio-economical in the way of achieving restructuring of the political and socio- economic status quo, which is currently consists of certain exclusion and non communication. Moreover, the situations in Bangkok are very dynamic, which should not be reduced by only one single action and solution. Instead, it needs evaluations and adaptability to each context and event in order to achieve sufficient upgrading in all sites and forward the momentum.

Those observations lead us to the strategies as an umbrella to break the major boundaries (social, spatial and organizational) and to integrate a comprehensive form of active citizenship. Our debate and discussion brought us to the four main strategies: building the common, urban triggers, reconfiguring relationships around land and adjustable program requirement. These positions itself are build upon the opportunities that we see in the field currently and we believe could be used and strengthened the existing socio-political platform for maximum benefit.

11 months ago

ACT 2: VALUES & VISIONS

Culture at play

Thai society is shifting from traditional agri-culture to modern industrial society, but still there are structural characteristics of Thai culture that make it very different from westernised ones, and in the particular case of the urban poor’s fight for the right to live and work in the city, make the definitive difference between having access or being pushed away from the very contested city centre.

In the field, while studying CODI and the Baan Mankong Program (BMK) we realized the role that Thai culture plays in the whole process, and how these values are permeable to all society.

Thailand is a Buddhist religious country and Buddhist belief puts forth the concept of moderation and non-confrontational action in life, and also that improvement of society in general will bring benefit to all in the long run.

We saw that BMK, being a program that address the most dispossessed residents of the city and their need for proper housing in a safe environment, is playing an important social role that brings Thai society to recognize its benefits. We saw that the existing Thai ‘culture of solidarity’ is favorable to the BMK program and overall, among different social and economic stratus, there is the facilitation of process.

Visions of the city

Fast growing economy cities are the ground where many competing forces are at play over the opportunities that such a thriving urban context offers. Bangkok is no different. There we acknowledged the role of centralized structures of decision in the greater processes that are constantly shaping the city - On one hand having to cope with solicitations for housing from those living in informality, and on the other hand with the private sector pressures to access available land for investment and development. And transversal to both were land accessibility questions tied to land owners that have a saying over most of the available land in Bangkok.

These different actors share the ‘need’ for the city but have different understandings of what the city means and of what it should provide - There are different visions of the city being devised simultaneously in continuous mode. For some it is the ground for capital accumulation via speculative action. For others it is the opportunity to access housing and a sustainable livelihoods inside the city.

On top of this, there is a big disconnect between conceptions of the city by those who have the task to imagine it, and perceptions of the city by those who actually live and use it in an everyday basis - Misconceptions over the city ‘of the others’ are frequent and counterproductive when addressing the complexity of poverty in the urban context.

In economies driven by liberalization of capital, where images of ‘world class cities’ stubbornly prevail as single dry solution of development, social demands are usually overcast by speculative forces working on the level of decision, and these are usually out of reach for those most dispossessed.

The case of the BMK program in the city of Bangkok is particular, exactly because it puts forth an alternative way to access those levels of power decision that dictate the outcome of the city to be, through collective organization of the urban poor, while these fight for their right to live and work in the city. We can say that BMK openly deals with pressures from speculative action, promoting collective civic action to confront it.

11 months ago

BUDD FIELDTRIP TO BANGKOK IN 3 ACTS

So finally a post. I did have something written in my log book… a pre-field trip entry that somehow never managed to free itself from cellulose. These demanding processes for multi-tasking performances where never my strongest…

ACT ONE - Individuals of a collective (20 May 2012)

In my pre-fieldtrip thoughts, just before our field trip, after having been submerged in the ‘collectiveness’ of the Ban Mankong (BMK) program for such a great while, I found myself mostly curious about how the individual perspectives and performances of those participating in the BMK project, both of those benefiting residents and of those managing and facilitating the whole process, would be revealed to us in the field, its dimensions and how it influenced the program.

We had studied most of the complex socio-economic reality of the program and the key question of land and conditions of access to it by the most dispossessed. Looked in deep at the actors involved and researched the issues/problems that could be drawn from our investigations. Throughout our work and in our consecutive presentations we played, reshuffled and played the cards again, continuously dissecting the knowledge that was accessible to us, and then again feeding from our feedbacks.

But this wasn’t enough… I kept on feeling something was missing.

We had become knowledgeable of the BMK program it is true… but I felt our knowledge of the subject was still of a ‘dry kind’ - As if there was another dimension that was still missing, dimension I had only glimpse ‘fishing’ from loose articles and news online… not enough to fully grasp - The individual perspective. The subject’s words.

It’s not hard to understand why I felt this component missing - I already carry around something as fifteen years of professional practice, and during those I became very accustomed to working with people. Either in commercial practice or in development, I firstly worked directly with the subject of my work and secondly researched around the same subject. But in the case of the academic work/research in BUDD it has worked the opposite way around - Your first contact is with the ‘books’ and the experts… and only after will you meet the subjects.

By then we had been always accessing the perspective of those either, studying the program, or managing/working with it - Only in Bangkok would we access the very personal and individual perspectives of those involved with it, in the field, in a daily basis. And In the end I found this to be the ‘glue’ that had been missing. The matter that gave cohesiveness to all the academic knowledge we had been exposed to.

I realized I simply had been having a difficult time conceiving a program like BMK, completely dependent on collective action and organization, without understanding the individual wants and needs that create the basis for all of it to grow on… those that are actually the tiny individual dynamos that all together, building collective synergies, make the BMK program possible.

As Soomsok herself says, “Ban Mankong is not a program about housing. It’s a program about people”.

People, collective are strong, isolated are weak, inexpressive. The best chance of gaining a voice, many times political, is through collective organization in order to be able to fight for what we believe in, and this usually happens around collective interests and objectives.

In the case of people who don’t have many financial resources their dispossession is even greater - For the residents of Bangkok that live in informal settlements and aspire to see their houses ‘formalized’ and integrated in the city, collective action is the most efficient way to fight for the right to live and work in the city, and the right to be recognized a full citizenship status.

People being central to the BMK program, makes them one of its major challenge, but also where its greatest opportunities will inevitably lie.

I saw the individual motivation of people as key to the functioning of the whole program, either as a initial catalyst or to keep the ‘momentum’ during the program.

Important here is not to confuse ‘individual’ with kinds of egocentric motivations, but to understand it inside the dimension of the individual motivation - a relational complex where come to play family ties, close social relations, support and dependences, livelihoods opportunities and access to a safe and secure environment in which to live in.

Across the sites we visited, I found the lack of motivation to be a recurrent obstacle to the development of the ‘formalization’ process of the city put forth by the BMK program, hindering the process for up-scaling - may it be scaling up by mere replication, strengthening processes or reaching the transformative level of institutional influence and change.

So here I question - How to keep the motivation of those who only engage in collective action to achieve their personal objectives, and after lose interest in the collective dynamics? Without keeping that momentum the collective action slowly fades and residents simply go on with their ‘individual’ lives… and there is the lost of community sense.

Maybe in these peoples perspective, the program served its end when providing them access to proper housing and relative secure tenure… and that’s it. - They will most certainly keep on thinking like this if the greater possibilities of collective organization are not made evident to them.

We saw that in some of the cases where there is a ‘healthy’ savings group in place, and collective dynamics is finding useful ways to keep answering the individual needs and wants in innovative and useful manners, we encounter ‘healthy’ communities, with positive future perspectives and built on dynamic network relations. And these would frequently have gone beyond the initial ‘strategies for housing financing’, and diversified their funding alternatives for areas as Livelihood insurance, Health and Education and even community welfare schemes to care for the eldest and disabled.

In my opinion there are lessons to be learned from what is happening in the ground, and opportunities for the program to exercise the ability to innovate and adapt to different subjects and circumstances. Adaptability and flexibility are key.

To keep individual motivation going, BMK has to start accommodating both diversity and individual initiative, and cater for the sense of belonging of residents, much needed to ensure long term sustainable solutions.

So in the end, this may mean that the program may need to be prepared to go from ‘acupuncture’ interventions… to several degrees of strategic transformation.

(Act 2 to follow…)

1 year ago View high resolution