Living with Risk: Precarity and Bangkok's Urban Poor

Column Series: In the City

184 Living with Risk 184 COLUMN SERIES In the City Community Development: Conflict and Existing Realities S, who helped initiate a savings group for residents of the Baan Mankong Housing Project in the aftermath of the fire, worked as its leader for three years. Organising a total of 350 households, he steered this effort through its most difficult days until reconstruction was finally able to get on track. During the period of seemingly endless coordination, when it appeared that actual reconstruction would never in fact take place, I once asked S what he felt to be most important as a leader in this effort. “Things take time, and the residents often have a difficult time understanding the process, so I have found it helpful to identify three goals per month,” he replied. “Then, if I see that I am having trouble with a particular goal, I can move on to the next one. If I don’t do this, everything just gets completely backed up.” It took four years before residents were able to move into permanent housing, although the work was far from being completed even at this late stage. When reconstruction was initially completed,1 this case was often cited as a model by outside observers. In recalling the numerous difficulties that occurred prior to the temporary move, however, I am sceptical about the way that outsiders tend to focus exclusively upon outcomes (specifically speaking, the organisation of a savings union, as well as residents undertaking the work of reconstruction on their own). It is an unquestionable fact that this process of reconstruction was able 1 Put more precisely, even after residents moved into permanent housing, the reconstruction process (home painting, pavement construction, installation of public infrastructure, etc.) was still ongoing. This is why I have utilised the phrase “when reconstruction was initially completed”. In the City 185 to move forward due in large part to the tenacious work taken on by community leaders and residents. As I outline in Chapter 6, however, this journey was most certainly not without bumps in the road. Many adjustments and challenges lay in wait during the process of reconstruction, including (but not limited to) the necessity to come up with savings in the amount of 10 per cent of the total construction fee in order to receive financing.2 With the project continuing to be prolonged , the greatest problem lay in existing conflicts with paid work. The community leaders and committee members who were primarily responsible for all aspects of the construction process—S, of course, as well as R, who was in charge of various tasks including the construction process—had to be available for the project every day, precluding them from being able to work elsewhere. “R” shouldered an enormous task load on a daily basis, including onsite supervision of temporary housing construction undertaken by residents themselves, as well as overseeing the construction process for permanent housing orders that were placed with a private company, beginning with the initial ground-levelling. As this sort of work was clearly unable to be carried out by a lone individual single-handedly, R worked with several others on rotation, collaborating with local residents along the way and engaging in seemingly endless tasks related to adjustment and maintenance. Obviously, however , no payment for services was able to be rendered. The same was also true for S as a leader, who worked exceedingly hard on behalf of the community—but was consequently unable to help support his own 2 In addition to savings-group activities and resident-led organising, the Baan Mankong project expects residents to undertake all aspects of the initiative on their own, including construction-related planning (choice of housing, construction of model housing, notification to group members, selection of and negotiation with construction companies, establishment of home location and conditions for moving in, etc.), as well as management of the entire construction process, external negotiations, etc. In this regard, professional knowledge is often then required. Much time was also spent in negotiating with those living in non-damaged households who refused to vacate, as well as in constructing temporary housing units for those who continued to live on the burned sites. After the ground began to be leveled to make way for a permanent housing unit, the location of temporary housing was often changed several times, with construction having to start all over from the beginning on each occasion. In order to carry out such an enormous amount of work, there...