Commoning or being commoned? Institutions, politics, and the role of the state in collective housing policy in Bangkok, Thailand

Shelby, Hayden

doi:10.1177/14730952211037372

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…This non-threatening stance is reinforced, however unintentionally, through NULICO's increasing difficulty in mobilizing its membership to take on initiatives beyond the administration of individual Baan Mankong projects. The network's larger membership and organizational structure, which places communities in pre-established subnetworks based on geography, also presents challenges to creating cohesiveness (Shelby, 2021).…”

Section: The Frsn Nulico and The Dialectics Of Scale In Baan Mankongmentioning

confidence: 99%

INSURGENT CO‐PRODUCTION: Conflict, Cooperation and the Dialectics of Scale in Thailand's Baan Mankong Program

Shelby

2024

Int J Urban Regional Res

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This article examines the role of insurgency in scaling up the co‐production of housing. Co‐production has gained in popularity in the past 15 years as both a set of practices and an intellectual framing for analyzing urbanization in the global South. Discussions of co‐production have largely emphasized the cooperative nature of the approach, asserting that a mostly non‐confrontational politics has proven effective at reshaping urban governance in ways that better meet the needs of the urban poor. However, recent analyses have identified conflict versus confrontation as a key tension in co‐production, especially as co‐productive programs seek to go to scale. I contribute to these discussions by analyzing a well‐known case of large‐scale co‐production, Thailand's Baan Mankong program, to understand the roles of insurgent versus cooperative community networks in the program's trajectory. I conclude that a more insurgent network opens up new land, resources and avenues for political participation. A more cooperative network then renders many of these interventions broadly politically acceptable to those in power. The two networks thus exist in a dialectic that has enabled the program's scaling up. I argue that research into co‐production should pay more attention to the importance of confrontational tactics by community networks.

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Section: The Frsn Nulico and The Dialectics Of Scale In Baan Mankongmentioning

confidence: 99%

INSURGENT CO‐PRODUCTION: Conflict, Cooperation and the Dialectics of Scale in Thailand's Baan Mankong Program

Shelby

2024

Int J Urban Regional Res

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“…This use of community‐based and supposedly empowering methods in the service of relocating poor residents has been described by Elinoff (2021, 250) as “participatory dispossession.” Similarly, Shelby (2021) has called the imposition of collective self‐governance by state entities through this program an example of “being commoned” as opposed to “commoning.” Collectively, these analyses point to the ways in which the relationship between displacement and the commons can be the inverse of enclosure, and it can happen with the consent and participation of those being displaced. The consequence of these narratives and technologies of community is displacement through the commons.…”

Section: Displacement Through the Commonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Displacement through the Commons: Community and Spatial Order in Bangkok

Shelby,

Renwick

2023

City & Society

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This article investigates the relationship of discourses around community to larger urban processes of development and displacement in Bangkok, Thailand. It focuses on two sites located along a major commercial corridor. The first, undergoing a process of relocation that involves establishing collective land tenure, goes by the Thai term for community, chumchon, though architects and planners frequently refer to it as a “slum.” The second site, an upscale “community mall” called the Commons, is a newly constructed open‐air commercial space built to serve Bangkok's young, hip creative class. The eviction of the poor chumchon residents in favor of wealthy café‐goers may look like a prime example of larger structural forces of what is often called “gentrification” or “accumulation by dispossession.” However, these sweeping narratives around global capitalist processes miss critical aspects of how the discursive construction of community around these two sites has enabled their physical construction and deconstruction. We demonstrate that rhetorics, imagery, and practices of community serve to valorize the existence of one site while justifying the removal of the other. This analysis demonstrates this outcome was not just the inevitable result of impersonal structural forces. It was displacement through the commons, fueled by discourses around community.

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“…While a small but growing number of publications have started to analyse Thailand through the concept of the common (e.g., Chaitawat et al, 2021;Shelby, 2021), the applicability of this framework has not yet been conceptualised well. In particular, for the analysis of art practices in Thailand we want to place two footnotes.…”

Section: The State the Market And The Commonmentioning

confidence: 99%

Art Organisers as Commoners: On the Sustainability and Counter‐Hegemonic Potential of the Bangkok Biennial

Wissink

Meeteren²

2022

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As part of a remarkable wave of perennial contemporary art events in Thailand, the Bangkok Biennial was organised for the first time in 2018. Without central curation or funding, the organisational strategy of this artist‐led, open‐access event was strikingly different from the state‐organised Thailand Biennale and the corporate Bangkok Art Biennale that were inaugurated several months later. Through the eyes of the literature on “commoning” as a third way of organising next to the state and market, we explore the “common spaces” that the Bangkok Biennial has produced. Reflecting on arguments articulated in the introduction to this thematic issue, as well as on Chantal Mouffe’s analysis of the detrimental nature of an “exodus strategy” for counter‐hegemonic action, we focus on the connections—if any—of the Bangkok Biennial with the state and corporations. Specifically, we address the following research questions: What are the characteristics of the Bangkok Biennial as a common art event? Which connections with the state and market have its organisers developed? And what are the consequences of this strategy for its sustainability and counter‐hegemonic potential? We conclude that the organisers have consciously resisted developing relationships with the state and market, and argue that this “exodus strategy” is a necessity in Thailand’s socio‐political setting. And while this strategy might endanger the sustainability of this biennial as an art event, we argue that at the same time it supports an infrastructure for counter‐hegemonic action inside and—possibly more importantly—outside art.

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Commoning or being commoned? Institutions, politics, and the role of the state in collective housing policy in Bangkok, Thailand

Cited by 7 publications

References 42 publications

INSURGENT CO‐PRODUCTION: Conflict, Cooperation and the Dialectics of Scale in Thailand's Baan Mankong Program

INSURGENT CO‐PRODUCTION: Conflict, Cooperation and the Dialectics of Scale in Thailand's Baan Mankong Program

Displacement through the Commons: Community and Spatial Order in Bangkok

Art Organisers as Commoners: On the Sustainability and Counter‐Hegemonic Potential of the Bangkok Biennial

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