issue 22 collectivism aug 2012

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All for one And one for All: ShAring in SoutheASt ASiAdigitAl ColleCtiviSm: from SoCiAl mediA to Crowd-SourCing demoCrACyColleCtivity And StAteleSS PeoPle in SoutheASt ASiAinterview with mS. SomSook BoonyABAnChAinfogrAPhiC: indigenouS PeoPleS in ASeAn

CollectivismCollectivism

The trend of decentralization and civic empowerment has led to the rise and return of collectivism and shar-ing. The idea of collectivism and collective ownership has become popular in recent years, trickling down to even the remotest of villages. This partaking amongst villagers and communities has empowered local people, improved livelihood conditions, and has emphasized the importance of optimizing resources and fusing community capital in order to sustain quality of life. Collectivism for local people in Southeast Asia is more than simply community ownership and allocation – it underscores the Asian cultural trait of caring for one’s family – collectivism in Southeast Asia is about sharing within the community.

Three evolving and recent examples in collective sharing in Southeast Asia are sharing tools, sharing land, and sharing roads.

Community CombinesFor many farmers in rural Viet Nam and Nepal, acquir-ing enough money to purchase coveted farming and fishing equipment takes decades. Many lose savings to bad harvests, natural disasters which destroy cash-crops, or family sickness. To alleviate the burden of acquiring machinery to greatly assist in their cultivation of crops, some communities in these countries have come together. Through the usage of small microcredit loans from orga-nizations such as Oxfam and Rotary International, they have purchased farming equipment and machinery for the community. Warehouses are designated to store the equipment and villagers can rent out the equipment to use for their farm. The community together has paid back the loan, making each supporter a member of the machinery warehouse, where they can utilize tools with the expectation that they will take care of and return the item when no longer needed.

This communal tool shed has enabled farmers and some fisherman the opportunity to utilize costly machinery with-out the burden of the exorbitant expense themselves. For many who could never afford these utensils by themselves, this communal warehouse of supplies offers an opportunity to improve, expand and advance their farming, sales and income that would not otherwise exist.

Sharing Land for Forestry and HousingGenerally speaking, as Southeast Asian economies become more capitalistic and integrated with the global economy, the property right regimes tend to become more institutionally formalized. Land becomes commoditized, privatized, and utilized more intensively for agricultural production and urban development. The poor have con-tinuously been squeezed out of the rural and urban land markets, making it difficult for them to sustain livelihoods. Amidst this general trend, there are initiatives around the region to share land in forest, rural, and urban settings.

In the context of massive deforestation throughout South-east Asia, there has been growing recognition that rural people play an important role in managing and protect-ing forestlands. The forest policy is shifting, albeit slowly, from state authority to a greater emphasis on devolution, decentralization, and community rights. This has led to the introduction of new legislation on forest manage-ment, known as community forestry. Community Forestry International estimates that there may be over 140 million forest dependent people in Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam (Poffenberger, 2006). Many of them are impoverished. For example, in 2004, 48.8 million people in Indonesia live in and near the forests, with 10.2 million of those forest dependent-people living below the poverty line (Safitri, 2006).

Until recently, communities and their forest use practices were condemned, and programmes to resettle them

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SCENARIOSAND EARLY INDICATORS

DR. APIWAT RATANAWARAHABY

Department of Urban and Regional Planning,Chulalongkorn University

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MS. ASHLEY E. PRITCHARDKEYWORDS:Sharing; collectivism; empowerment;Community forestry; Bike-share

EDITORIALA stylized fact on the modernization process as observed in Southeast Asia is that as the economies develop and urbanization and industrialization continue, those societies become more individualistic. People care more about themselves and much less about other people and the society as a whole. Collectivism that was once the basic tenet of traditional societies is disap-pearing. Such a statement is perhaps too simplistic. Everywhere we still see incidents of horizontal collectivism, in which people of relatively equal social status and economic means share ideas and things to help out each other. Meanwhile, vertical collectivism, which is based on hierarchical structures of power and cultural conformity, continues to define social interactions of people in Southeast Asia.

Our articles in this issue of Trendnovation Southeast feature a few aspects of collectivism in this region. The first article by Apiwat Ratanawaraha and Ashley Pritchard highlights three different objects that are being shared among communities: farming tools, land, and roads. The trend of decentralization and civic empowerment has led to the rise and return of collectivism and sharing. This partaking among villagers and communities has empowered local people and improved livelihood conditions. It emphasizes the importance of optimiz-ing resources and fusing community capital in order to sustain quality of life.

In the second article, Jittiporn Chaisaingmongkol discusses how digital technologies propel the sense and action of collectivism in Southeast Asia. During a time of crisis, online community networks share information and organize disaster relief and humanitarian support among themselves. In many instances, they do it faster and more effectively than governmental agencies. Meanwhile, a growing number of people share their political ideas through digital means, pushing further digital democracy that is shaking the existing political establishments. In a sense, digital collectivism is trying to reduce the degree of vertical collectivism based on centralized decision makings so as to enhance horizontal collectivism that favors a decentralized political structure.

The third article takes a different angle about collectivism. Thanida Boon-wanno and Yodpol Thepsitthar explore issues related to stateless people in Southeast Asia. As cross-border movements of people are being liberalized, the political status and socio-economic conditions of stateless people are also at a crossroads. The existence of stateless people has become more visible to the general public, and many of them have been granted citizen-ship. Yet the degree of social collectivity remains only among the stateless people themselves. Little is provided for them to be integrated socially and economically into the host countries.

For the interview, we have the honor to learn from Somsook Boonyabancha, Secretary General of the Asian Coalition of Housing Rights, who has been an instrumental figure in the successful Baan Mankong collective housing project in Thailand. She shares with us her insights into collectivism in general and collective housing in particular. She explains to us how the process of securing collective land tenure, in which the communities themselves are at the center of the planning and implementation process, could help enhance social cohesion and other collective activities down the road.

Our infographic of the month gives us a point of caution when we use the terms collectivism and collectivity. Without thinking too much, we sometimes refer only to people who are in the majority in society, those with citizenships, and people with social status and recognition. But in reality, as many as 19% of Southeast Asia’s population are considered to be indigenous peoples. These people have been excluded for far too long in efforts to build social collectivism and collectivity that transcends extant political boundaries and social biases.

P A G E 9COLLECTIVITYAND STATELESS PEOPLEIN SOUTHEAST ASIA By Ms. Thanida BoonwannoAnd Mr. Yodpol Thepsitthar

P A G E 3ALL FOR ONEAND ONE FOR ALL:SHARING INSOUTHEAST ASIA By Dr. Apiwat RatanawarahaAnd Ms. Ashley E. Pritchard

P A G E 6DIGITAL COLLECTIVISM:FROM SOCIAL MEDIATO CROWD-SOURCINGDEMOCRACY By Dr. Jittiporn Chaisaingmongkol

INTERVIEW WITH Ms. Somsook Boonyabancha

P A G E 12

INFOGRAPHIC: INDIGENOUS PEOPLEIN ASEAN By Infographic of the Month

P A G E 14

DR. APIWAT RATANAWARAHABY

A rice farmer in vietnam takes advantage of the community tool shed lending scheme.

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Disclaimer : The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of Noviscape Consulting Group or the Rockefeller Foundation.Copyright © Trendsoutheast 2009 - 2012. All Rights Reserved.

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gained popularity throughout the region in the 1960s and1970s. Today, policy strategies support greater com-munity involvement in forest management. Such policy requires the legislation and enforcement of laws specifying local communities as those responsible for land manage-ment historically overseen by the state. The Philippines has, by far, the largest proportion of its state forest domain delegated to communities for management. Much of this has been achieved through the Certificate of Ancestral Domain Claim Program. Viet Nam has about 12% of the state forest territory under local groups at the village or commune level. Recognition of community stewardship is authorized by the commune and district councils, since the nation has not yet ratified a national community forestry policy. Other countries have transferred a small percent-age of their state forest land to communities, but recent policy changes may allow for an acceleration of devolu-tion in the future. The Thai government has already issued community land titles to villages that have demonstrated capabilities to manage land collectively. As many as 435 communities of more than 63,000 households, mostly in northern Thailand, have applied for community land titles.

In urban settings, the Baan Mankong Collective Housing Program in Thailand has been successful in addressing land and housing problems that affect the urban poor. Launched by the Thai government in 2003, the program utilizes government funds, in the form of infrastructure subsidies and soft housing and land loans, directly to poor communities. The success of the program is based on its core principle: that is, the communities and their community networks must be at the center of a process of developing long-term, comprehensive solutions to land and housing problems. Supported by the Community Or-ganizations Development Institute, poor communities work in close collaboration with local governments and other stakeholders in planning, budgeting, and implementing their community upgrading projects. In many cases, the communities collectively own the land in the form of co-operatives. Through the Asian Coalition of Housing Rights (ACHR), the ideas of collective housing and community development are spreading to many cities in Southeast Asia and beyond.

Sharing the RoadCollective community transportation is an idea that has been around for centuries. But for many countries in Southeast Asia, public transportation mainly consists of government operated systems in larger cities, and expensive private options in rural villages.

Several initiatives to bring transport-sharing to Southeast Asia may help local people avoid costly travel expenses. In Singapore, CleanMobility and SMove have brought collective transport through electric cars and scooters. Members who pay yearly dues can rent modes of transport through the company’s sharing scheme. This service is seen as an addition to public transportation, providing a community owned, operated and shared option. Similarly, ISUDA opened its first bike-share branch in Southeast Asia in Singapore. ISUDA bike share is a membership based, bicycle rental scheme where bicycle stations are set up at convenient points in the city. Members can borrow these

bicycles and return them free-of-charge to one of the many bike stations in the city, promoting an environmentally friendly and cheap mode of transport.

Community transport has also breached the academic world and, for a fee of 500 pesos, a student at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City can use a Padyak bicycle for an entire semester. This transport scheme provides an alternative for students who cannot afford the more expensive bus system, helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and allows students the freedom to move quickly around campus (“Alternative Transport,” 2008).

Similar to bike-sharing, in Yangon, Myanmar the local community operates a Women’s Only Bus for its mem-bers. This bus is owned and operated by the local com-munity, but is intended to offer free safe rides to females in downtown Yangon, free of charge. Members of the community volunteer to drive the local bus route and maintain the vehicles.

Community farming has given the poor an opportunity to utilize expensive machinery and advance their farm-ing and fishing capabilities without the burden of the cost. For most poor farmers and fisherman, acquiring enough capital to purchase this expensive equipment is not possible, and as a result, these poor entrepreneurs are given an opportunity that would not otherwise be feasible. Through improved machinery, the poor com-munities have been able to expand and improve their crops and catch, providing more supply and income to them and their families.

Community forestry is in its nascent stage, with new generations of policies and laws only in early phases of implementation, and with much left to be determined about its true impact on the local people and environ-ment. However, by providing participation in and usage of forests, poor dependents of forests are able to secure

their livelihoods and provide for their families. It also increases the sense of shared responsibility and “collective governance” not only among the communities themselves, but also between the communities and the state agencies. Much of the limitations and inhibitors for the potential improvement towards community livelihoods lies in the complexity and absence of transparent and secure prop-erty rights on forestlands (Contreras-Hermosilla, 2005).

Shared community transportation initiatives are also in their infancy in Southeast Asia, but their success has been well documented in the United States, Europe and China. These initiatives provide free transport for migrant workers in larger cities who may not be able to afford more costly subways and other modes of transport. Bike-shares also provide benefit to the environment and are often noted as quicker modes of transport in short distances around cities. Lastly, female-only transport is not new, as it was introduced in Japan to combat lewd conduct, and has since been implemented in the Philippines and Indonesia due to its success. However, the women’s-only bus in Yangon is one of the first instances where the initiative has begun as a community-operated system.

While the advances of collectivism may be small in terms of generating more income or physically lifting individu-als out of poverty, community sharing empowers local people in ways previously unattainable. This symbiotic relationship has sparked community innovation through common need. One benefit of communal sharing, as noted by Somsook Boonyabancha, ACHR Secretary-General, is that “sharing one aspect with the community often promotes further communal ownership in other areas.” Through these successful communal sharing initiatives, there is a snowballing, by which other joint projects occur. As she notes through her work with collective housing projects, communities began to share other liberties, such as transportation, after-school education tutoring, insight and collective gardening (for shared food). Through the success of one collective project, further communal partner-ships, alliances, and ownerships are formed.

• Decentralization and empowerment policies are key drivers towards sharing proprietorship.

• Development instruments can help forward the col-lective enterprise. Examples include group lending schemes in which individuals pay back loans as a public group, and pro-poor initiatives that empower communities through infrastructure and livelihood projects. Group microfinance loans have indeed been helpful to local communities in Viet Nam, who took out group loans in order to purchase tools, and similar group lending schemes have been sponsored throughout Asia. Similarly, pro-poor development that supports community projects helps to further collective partnerships. The World Bank announced in August 2012 that it would incorporate up to $85 million in community-led projects in Myanmar, by which communities had to submit proposals for

infrastructure and livelihood improvement projects that were initiated by the community, agreed on by the community, and executed by the community (Associated Press, 2012).

• Cooperative efforts also help strengthen the values and principles of collectivism. Cooperative efforts appear in multiple forms throughout Southeast Asia, such as agriculture and farmer alliances, taxi driver groups, and community welfare associations who look after the disenfranchised within the community. Cooperatives help strengthen and further promote sharing, by pooling together common occupations, lifestyles and villages in order to better improve conditions for all members.

• As societies in Southeast Asia become more indi-vidualistic, the sense of sharing and collectivism may decrease or manifest itself in different forms and characteristics. City residents share more things and ideas with their friends through digital means than with their neighbors next door.

ABOUT THE AUTHORSApiwat Ratanawaraha is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand, where he teaches infrastructure planning and finance, urban management, and economic development. His current research includes projects on city in-novations in Southeast Asian megacities, infrastructure justice, and inequality in access to basic services in Thailand. He has been a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT, teaching infrastructure finance and energy security. He was a Doctoral Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, conducting research on infrastructure, technological development and innovation policy.

Ashley Pritchard holds a BA in Political Science and Eco-nomics and a minor in Engineering from Lehigh University. As a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar, she works with diplomatic and international aid missions for peace while she studies at Chulalongkorn University to obtain her Master’s in International Development. Prior to coming to Thailand, Ashley liaised with NGO’s while working several years at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. Her major research interests in-clude tourism for development, microfinance, and their impact on societies. Her current research is testing the theory of the trickle-down effect in analyzing the relationship between tourism, development and human rights through case work in Myanmar.

DRIVERSIMPLICATIONS FOR THE POOR

REFERENCESAlternative Transport. (2008). Retrieved from http://blogs.inquirer.net/roadtrip/alternative-transportation/Associated Press. (2011). PH population growth rate fastest in Southeast Asia, will continue increasing even if couples limit children to two. Retrieved from http://www.spot.ph/the-feed/46923/ph-population-growth-rate-fastest-insoutheast-asia-will-continue-increasing-even-if-couples-limit-children-to-two/Associated Press. (2012). Burma to receive US$85 million in World Bank grants, Mizimma News. Retrieved from http://www.mizzima.com/business/7660- burma-to-receive-us-85-million-in-world-bank-grants.htmlContreras-Hermosilla, A. a. F., C. (2005). Strengthening Forest Management in Indonesia through Land Tenure Reform: Issues and Framework for Action. Washington D.C.: Forest Trends.Poffenberger, M. (2006). People in the forest: community forestry experiences from Southeast Asia. International Journal on Environment and Sustainable Development, 5(1), 57-69.Safitri, M. A. (2006). Change without Reform? Community Forestry in Decentralizing Indonesia. Bali: INDIRA Project, IASCP Conference.Salim, E., & Ullsten, O. (1999). Our Forests: Our Future – Report of the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Scott, M. (1999). The Disappearing Forests. Far Eastern Economic Review, 12th January, 32.UNESCAP. (2011). Statistical Yearbook for Asia and the Pacific 2011. Retrieved from http://www.unescap.org/stat/data/syb2011/I-People/Population.asp

Bike shares, common in europe and the united States are beginning to make their way to Southeast Asia.

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http://www.spot.ph/the-feed/46923/ph-population-growth-rate-fastest-in-southeast-asia-will-continue-increasing-even-if-couples-limit-children-to-two/

http://www.spot.ph/the-feed/46923/ph-population-growth-rate-fastest-in-southeast-asia-will-continue-increasing-even-if-couples-limit-children-to-two/

http://www.mizzima.com/business/7660-burma-to-receive-us-85-million-in-world-bank-grants.html

http://www.mizzima.com/business/7660-burma-to-receive-us-85-million-in-world-bank-grants.html

Connected by political ideas: Digital DemocracyThe Internet has become a channel for the voices of citizens. With increasing political awareness, people use the Internet and social media to organize online petitions or political movements. This practice is often seen as a threat by govern-ments, which react with Internet restrictions or the monitoring of citizens. This leads increasing numbers of people, who believe that only an open Internet and free access to information can lead to a more democratic and open society, unavoidably into a conflict between the political establishment and their online communities.

The most vivid example of the dynamic between real world politics and digital culture is the emergence of Pirate Parties in Europe. Starting with the conflict between file-sharing and controversial copyright laws, Pirate Party Sweden was founded in 2006. As the debate moved from the online world onto the streets in form of demonstrations, the party gained more popularity. Debate in the cyber world and mainstream media reached real world politics when the Swedish Pirate Party gained one seat in the European parliament in 2009. To date, Pirate Party Germany has succeeded in entering four state parliaments in Germany. The main program of the party covers, among other aspects, several digital topics such as copyright and patent laws, Internet freedom, privacy protection, and government transparency.6

Another main issue is participation of citizens in political processes via the Internet, in the form of Liquid Democracy. In this new model of democratic organization, voters can transfer their votes to individually chosen “delegates”. This model combines the advantages of direct and representative democracy.7 The concept of liquid democracy has been used in some organizations since the beginning of 2000s. But it was improvement of information technology and the Internet which made liquid democracy in larger groups of people possible. The platform called Liquid Feedback was created and developed by Pirate Party Germany for this purpose. It is not only about voting but also about sharing and cooperating in political work. Party members use the online tools of the platform to determine stances and propose policies. They ex-tensively use mailing lists, wikis, chat rooms and collaborative document editing applications for discussing political issues and writing joint proposals – real time crowd-sourced policy and decision making.8

Use of the Internet to launch political campaigns or organize demonstrations becomes a common practice across Southeast Asia. The “palm of freedom” gesture, which originated in the project “Even Though I’m Free I Am Not” and aims to free political prisoners in Burma, has gone viral across the world. It has inspired similar projects, including “Thailand’s Fearless-ness” campaign against the lèse-majesté law. Even though the majority of online petitions are not directly about digital issues, the number of campaigns involving censorship and freedom of speech is increasing, ironically, due to government attempts to control cyberspace. For example, Malaysian Internet users are protesting against the recently passed Evidence (Amendment) Act 2012 at present (August 2012), including protest pages on Facebook, an online petition, and an Internet blackout day “Stop114A”.9

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KEYWORDS:Digital collectivism; Internet freedom; social media; Liquid Democracy; digital culture; citizen; digital politics

DR. JITTIPORN CHAISAINGMONGKOLBY


6 Chaisaingmongkol, J. (2012). Internet liberty as public policy of political parties: international movement (in Thai). Retrieved from https://thainetizen.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/3-3-internet-public-policy-jittiporn.pdf7 Ford, B. (2002). Delegative Democracy. Retrieved from http://www.brynosaurus.com/deleg/deleg.pdf8 Liquid Democracy (in German). Retrieved from http://wiki.piratenpartei.de/Liquid_Democracy9 Mackay, J.(2011). Abhaya: Burma’s Fearlessness. Retrieved from http://enigmaimages.wordpress.com/abhaya-burmas-fearlessness/

1 International Telecommunication Union (2010). Percentage of Individuals using the Internet 2000-2010. Retrieved from http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/material/excel/2010/IndividualsUsingInternet_00-10.xls2 Facebook Statistics by City (Beta). Retrieved from http://www.socialbakers.com/facebook-statistics/cities/3 The Psychology of Sharing (2011). The New York Times Customer Insight Group. Retrieved from http://nytmarketing.whsites.net/mediakit/pos/4 Kelly, K. (2009). The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online. Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-06/nep_newsocialism?currentPage=all5 Toor, A. (2010). Indonesians Organize Disaster Relief Efforts via Twitter. Retrieved from http://www.switched.com/2010/11/23/indonesians-twitter-organize-disaster-relief/

flood in thailand 2011. Some rights reserved by eu humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection.

Banner from Stop 114A campaign in malaysia. Some rights reserved by Prachatai.

Parade of Pirate Party germany “freedom instead of Angst 2009”. Some rights reserved by Piratenpartei deutschland.

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Since the 1990s, the Internet has revolutionized the way of communication and has become a global connection network for everyone. The new technology allows people to commu-nicate instantly, facilitating access to information and dissemi-nation of their opinions. This democratization of information has pushed us further into the era of the information society. Along with the breakthrough of Internet and mobile Internet in Southeast Asia, which has facilitated computer-mediated social interaction, social media and other user-generated content on the Internet have rapidly increased. The new level of connectivity has slowly changed not only digital awareness of citizens, in terms of access to communication and privacy, but has also increased political awareness and public partici-pation in political issues. The collection of new attitudes has transformed to digital culture. The most obvious characteristics of this culture are sharing and user participation.

During the first decade of the new Millennium the number of Internet users in Southeast Asia has grown constantly. Even though Internet access is still a privilege for a minority of the population (21% in Thailand and 25% in the Philippines1), the Smartphone and tablet boom in the region will soon increase Internet penetration in these countries. Interestingly, Southeast Asia has a high adoption rate of social media, with Bangkok and Jakarta as cities with the most Facebook users (8.68 million in Bangkok and 7.43 million users in Jakarta2). The willingness of the online masses to share cannot be denied. In social media, millions of people have created their own profile, sharing their personal information with their online communities. Billions of videos, photos, status-updates, and check-ins are uploaded into user’s profiles daily. Motivation for online sharing has been intensively studied. The main reasons that have been identified in a study of The New York Times Customer Insight Group are: Internet users share to bring valuable content to others, to define themselves to others, for self-fulfillment, to grow and nourish relationships, and to market causes or brands.3 For whatever reasons, sharing is the foundation of communal engagement in the digital world.

Digital collectivism: Quantum leap in Southeast AsiaNot only do people share their information, such as photos or video, but they also tag keywords and information to it, making it more searchable on the Internet. Furthermore,

many users also apply Creative Commons (CC) licensing to images, texts, podcasts, or even music they created, so that everyone can use them freely. Organized collaboration is the next step of digital engagement. Users can participate in creating an online encyclopedia by writing a few articles, and selected peers take responsibility for critical processes. This strategy is also applied to create complex open source software packages. These products are free of charge and can be used to create a new product. Digital collectivism is characterized by techniques and tools that promote sharing, participation, decentralized coordination, and cooperation.4

What will be the impact of this digital culture on citizens, so-ciety, and politics? This article discusses trends, chances and challenges of digital collectivism in Southeast Asia.

Connected by Emergency: Online communities during crisisThe effectiveness of online community networks can be seen clearly in times of crisis. One example would be the eruption of Indonesia’s Mount Merapi in 2010. Disaster relief efforts from state authorities had proved a challenge in a remote region with destroyed infrastructure. Digital citizens have turned to considerably faster media for organizing relief with their own hands, using Twitter. JalinMerapi (@jalinmerapi) is a network of locals that used Twitter during the crisis. With support from community radio stations and hundreds of volunteers they man-aged aid supplies and resources to 700 shelters with more than 200,000 refugees around Mount Merapi. The organization attracted over 33,000 followers in November 2010 alone.5

A more recent example is the great flood in Thailand in late 2011. Social media were able to surpass official channels and mainstream media. People who had access to the Internet formed online communities and shared information about the flood situation. Since connection via Internet is fast and non-hierarchical, the communities were able to be up to date on the changing situation very quickly. Through the Internet and social media, the information could reach the “public” almost immediately. None of the mainstream media, let alone the official channels run by the government, could keep up with the pace of these online communities. The Facebook page “Tell me quickly if there are floods”, which updated the flood situa-tion by the minute, had 271,100 followers. Even a complete website supported mostly by non-government organizations (www.thaiflood.com) could be created rather quickly in the middle of the crisis. The website contained extensive informa-tion on the location of evacuation centers, and a map of the current flood situation had systematic live updates via Twitter, Facebook, and phone calls.

Since the beginning of the Indochinese refugee crisis, it has been almost four decades for Thailand serving as the host country of the regional office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The country has always been a resting place and gateway for refugees across Asia.1 Even though the scale of severity and numbers of refugee in Southeast Asia are less than those in Africa and South Asia, there has been a change in the region, particularly among

“stateless people”, a less visibly and overlooked group that is being denied basic rights by the authorities just because they do not have any citizenship. There has been more disclosure of the situation among the public from various sources and increased engagement. These people are becoming more vis-ible. Interestingly, while liberalization of cross-border mobility in ASEAN is going to be realized by 2015, and public mindset and volunteerism are being popularized, they are still being excluded from the social collectivity and regional integration, and nearly all live in an extreme poverty condition.

Nationality gains: An extreme poverty still remainsAll of the stateless people face the same extreme poverty situation. Economically, they are poor because their rights to work are limited. Politically, they have no right to vote. Socially and culturally, the stateless people are discriminated against to access fundamental rights, such as the underlying conditions of health and the right to medical care. Stateless people have long existed in Mainland Southeast Asia (particularly around the borderline of Thailand and its neighboring countries, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar). It is estimated that there are approximately 506,200 stateless people currently living in Thailand (UNHCR Global Report, 2011).2 It was found that groups of stateless people in Thailand are not only people living in marginal areas of the country or groups of hill tribal people, but they are also living throughout every region of the country with extreme poverty conditions.

For each member state, a solution to the problem of citizen-ship varies according to the country. Some countries have introduced methods of expelling the minority out of the country, such as Myanmar expels “the Rohingya”3 a minority ethnic group in the Republic of the Union of Myanmar” out of the country (and some of them come to Thailand), whereas other countries opt for methods of verifying nationality and granting citizenship in a case where a link to the concerning state is found, such as granting of Thai citizenship. Nationality grant-ing is the key measure to reduce statelessness.

At this moment, the Thai Government is the most active coun-try in the region to integrate ethnic groups, minority ethnic groups, and hill tribes into the national civic registration system, and it has been done for decades. In principle, the nationality granting will be continued. This can be observed from the decreasing number of stateless people in Thailand since the amendment of the new Nationality Act (B.E. 2555 or B.C. 2012). The current Thai Nationality Act additionally recognizes the problem of the Thai Diaspora suffering state-lessness, which is still waiting to be solved. In fact, the Thai Government has not just recently realized the problem of the stateless Thai Diaspora, and has attempted to solve their problems, but Thailand has been continuously granting Thai nationality though change of nationality for the stateless Thai Diaspora. Nevertheless, a mechanism to embrace and protect the newly minted citizen to integrate them into the social and economic system is still being very inefficiently managed by the authorities. The window of social collectivity for the state-less people requires the later as well.

More visibility and attention to stateless people among Southeast Asians:

The ASEAN Community integration process of the member states is resulting in impacts on many fields, whether economic integration or liberation of cross-border movements for nation-als of the member states, in order that the ASEAN Community be ready to bargain with powerful countries, be it China, the United States of America, or the European Union. However, the consequences do not only bring about benefits to the member states; the ensuing results may lead to exposure of the problem, which the member states have been attempting to hide or conceal for a long time, namely the problem of the status and well-being of citizens in each nation-state of the member states.

As they are “an invisible people”, a collectivity for them seems to be overlooked by the majority of the citizens in Southeast Asia and around the world. This perception has continuously been changing after the Rohingya, Laotian ethnic groups, or even many minority ethnic groups in Thailand have continu-ously been caught up on regional news networks, on-line TV, and various blogs in Southeast Asia and around the world. For example, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand have a joint-navy mission to ward off piracy with regular air patrols around the Andaman Sea, but when it comes to the Rohingya boat people, the coverts have been secrecy treated. In many cases the ‘’pushback’’ operations become a solution in response to growing numbers of this group of refugees (Morison and Sidasathian, 2011). The disclosure of such secrecy, later, spread around the world and caught the public’s interest.

REFERENCES

Social media as new cooperative platform for government and citizensThe most important lesson from the great 2011 flood in Thai-land is the fact that a blast of online cooperation on social media tends to fizzle after the crisis. In order to keep such operations going and prepared for the next crisis, a small group of coordinators has to watch over the management and maintenance of websites. The government could perform this task. Indeed, the Thai government was also aware of the power of the Internet. They set up a Facebook page and uploaded flood information on the website of the Flood Relief Operations Center (www.floodthailand.net). But they were not able to keep up with the pace of the “grassroots-based” websites and pages, probably because the government could not release any information that did not originate from within the government itself. The combination of maintaining web content during normal times and the usage of crowd-sourced information during crisis times might be a solution for rapid and effective disaster management. But this needs a paradigm shift in governance, and whether those spontaneous emergency groupings of citizens in the online world will become a basis of crisis management in the future remains to be seen.

Digital politics and political crowdsourcing in Southeast Asia?Digitization has partly shaped the political landscape of Southeast Asia since the 1990s. The Philippines and Indo-nesia underwent major political changes organized more or less through digital media using SMS messaging or Internet. Political riots in Thailand at the end of the 2000s also mani-fested in cyberspace.10 Mobile phones and digital cameras were used to record violence during the Saffron revolution, where online distribution of the events gave citizens power to stand up against Myanmar’s government with support from the international community. But there is more to be done in Southeast Asia, where cyberspace and/or press freedom are strictly controlled. According to Reporters Without Borders, all Southeast Asia countries are in the bottom quartile of the 2011–2012 Worldwide Press Freedom Index, with scores between 55 and 114. The best scores (-10) belong to Finland and Norway, whereas North Korea and Eritrea occupy the last places with score of 141 and 142, respectively.11 Inter-estingly, Malaysia with tight control of traditional media has been experiencing a flourishing of online media, which is often seen as an important antagonist to the government. And this might be where the key factor lies; digital media in Malaysia has a pretty strong reputation. Networking between online communities, political parties, and offline civil organizations is well developed, so any efforts to repress the Internet from the government are defeated by online and offline communities. For example, the attempt to apply an Internet filter to block

“undesirable websites” in 2009 was successfully stopped.12 It is not surprising that Malaysia was the first country in Southeast Asia to have had concrete discussions on forming a local Pirate Party.13

The growing rate of Internet access and digital collectivism surely impacts not only the daily life of citizens, but also their political and social awareness. Connecting to the whole world

and learning from the experience of others countries, citizens have more occasions than ever to reflect on their own role in society. The genie is already out of the bottle; it is hard to see how any government can stand in its way. Whether people in Southeast Asia will choose the role of the politically active and socially engaged, or rather that of passive citizens, will be their own choice.

• Increasing investment in mobile industry – Global investors have realized that Southeast Asia, with a tenth of the world’s population, offers huge and diverse markets for mobile devices. This will improve mobile infrastructure and further digitization among the citizens.

• Increasing digital awareness of Southeast Asia citizens – A BBC World Service poll showed that 91% of Thais strongly believe that Internet access should be a fundamental right, and 83% stated that the Internet has increased their freedom. A majority of Indonesians and Filipinos also agree with both state-ments.14

• International cooperation and networking – similar to the Pirate Party movement in the EU, interna-tional networking among Internet activists in Southeast Asia must be established. A network between Southeast Asian civil society groups already exists. Coordinated action and lobbying still need to be strengthened.

• Lack and/or monopolization of digital infra-structure – In many Southeast Asian countries, e.g., Laos, Myanmar or Cambodia, access to the Internet still remains a challenge. Monopolization of national infrastructure might result in unaffordable cost of online connectivity.

• Lack of multi-stakeholder mechanisms for Internet governance – Across Asia the dialogue between government and civil society is not well devel-oped. This often leads to inadequate Internet policies, especially when it involves human rights, freedom of expression, and privacy protection.

• Increasing censorship and repression of online expression – Southeast Asian governments are extend-ing censorship of traditional media to the Internet. Some are releasing even more repressive laws for controlling cyberspace. Even more problematic is the fact that the laws are implemented in a non-transparent manner.

IDEA

MS. THANIDA BOONWANNOBY

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MR. YODPOL THEPSITTHARKEYWORDS:Stateless People; human security; cross-border movements; extreme poverty; vertical collectivity; Cambodia; Myanmar; Thailand

IMPLICATIONS

INHIBITORS

DRIVERS

ABOUT THE AUTHORJittiporn Chaisaingmongkol, Ph.D., is a Researcher at the Department of Chemical Carcinogenesis at Chulabhorn Research Institute. After high school in Thailand, she spent 13 years in Germany, studied Biology, and got her Ph.D. from Heidelberg University. Her research in Biology mainly focused on epigenetics and cancer. Her non-academic interests are the Pirate Party move-ment, policies about internet freedom in Europe, Liquid Democracy, and civic movements for reforming democratic organizations.


1 According to UNHCR, there are currently almost 100,000 registered refugees and some 9,000 asylum seekers in Thailand.2 http://www.unhcr.org/4fc880b60.html3 “Rohingya” is a Muslim ethnic minority living mostly in western Burma’s Arakan State where they are denied Burmese citizenship, and subjected to various forms of discrimination.

10 Siriyuvasak, U. (2010). Digital Democracy: a new era of digital connectivity. TrendNovation Southeast, 4, 9. Retrieved from http://trendsoutheast.org/old/index.php/media?download=6%3Aissue-311 Press Freedom Index 2011-2012 Retrieved from http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-index-2011-2012,1043.html12 Liu, Yangyue (2011), Crafting a Democratic Enclave on the Cyberspace: Case Studies of Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore. Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 30, 4, 33-55.13 Malaysia Pirate Party. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/MalaysiaPirateParty14 BBC World Service poll (2010). Four in Five Regard Internet Access as a Fundamental Right: Global Poll. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/08_03_10_BBC_internet_poll.pdf

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REFERENCES

In Thailand, the recent case that caught the eyes of the national media and politicians in Thailand is “A-Mong”4, the-Stateless-Origami boy, who was invited to Japan to join the international competition for paper airplane folding as the Thai representa-tive, but he was refused permission to leave the country by the Minister of the Interior for national security reasons. The legal status of this origami boy conflicted with the status presented on his travel documents, as the airplane-folding competitor from Thailand. This case engages a lot the role of the politician and the attention of society. There have been increased actions on public speaking, conferences, and campaigning from active human rights groups, and follow-up by some on-line media dedicated to stateless issues (e.g. Prachatai.com for Thailand and Irrawaddy News for Myanmar). Also, some academic and research groups have interactive blogs and web portals as channels. For example, www.acharnwell.org is the blog of Dr. Phunthip Kanchanachittra Saisoonthorn, the Associate Professor of Law at Thammasat University in Thailand, who has done humanitarian advocacy works regarding the situation of illegal immigration and immigrant workers. These groups communicate and provide free consultancy services for the stateless people in the region, while there has been increas-ingly active interaction from the stateless individuals. These new developments can be characterized as an emergence of socialization for sharing a recognition and solution to the problem of the stateless people by various change agents, particularly the media, academia, and the stateless themselves.

Cross-border mobility as a collective platform for the stateless peopleFor the ordinary citizen, who has a legal status and civic registration certification, cross-border movement does not cre-ate any problems or obstacles. People and the work force in both the countries of origin and countries of destination must be aware of the legal status of each individual, in respect to reasons of national security of the country, allocation of resources, and problems of controlling crime. But for stateless people in Mainland Southeast Asia, with or without proper documentation to certify their legal status and links in relation with any state or nationality, there exist a great deal of prob-lems and obstacles to be suffered in crossing the boundary.

The recent conclusion of cease-fire accords between the Gov-ernment of Myanmar and minority ethnic groups is allowing Myanmar to attain more domestic political stability and gain more confidence from the international community, and at the same time is enabling some other accords with minority ethnic groups to be reached.5 There will likely be more transaction of goods, investment, technologies, and mobility across the Myanmar-Thai border and among the other Mainland Southeast Asian countries. Movement of the stateless people in Myanmar into Thailand will be increased, including various issues of both existing problems (illegal migration, prostitution, forced labor, healthcare and etc.), and more complex issues like cultural clashes, modernization of ethnic groups, and urbanization will arise. This free movement will define new economic opportunity between the two countries, but an intangible boundary for “Stateless People” will still exist. New economic opportunities are already well defined; while there will be more opportunities for the stateless people and civil society to work together by utilizing this platform.

Public sector implicationsThere has been a recent development on the regional level. In November 2011, the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) workshop on statelessness, held in Manila, came up with the suggestion that the commission should engage with international organizations and other stakeholders to conduct a study on nationality laws and map stateless populations. For example, in Cambodia, UNHCR is continuing its efforts to support the government to manage asylum procedures by developing a national asylum system, and to help the Refugee Office of Cambodia to continue to register asylum-seekers and adjudicate cases. In the case of Thailand, UNHCR leads to protect the camps along the Thailand-Burma border through the Protection Coordination Body in Mae Sot (UNHCR Global Report, 2011).

The member states should conduct surveys to determine how large the volume of statelessness is of the population within their own countries, in order to enable the formulation of plans for better allocation of resources. Better statistics and real time information will help the general public to play a more active role to embrace the stateless people into society and economic sharing.

Community and citizen implicationsA clear and implementable process, and innovation for “the newly minted citizen” who has been granted nationality in the region to integrate into the society with human rights protection, while at the same time accelerate a collectivity between the majority group of citizens and themselves is needed. There will have to be more room to engage from the individual and organizational levels.

More case studies, success and failure analysis, small group economic activities, including the establishment of social enterprises (SE) to do the business related to stateless people, which is still insufficient. Supporting and engaging more ideas, and funding these activities, will increase visibility and understanding among all stakeholders.

• A common resolution within the ASEAN Charter on human rights and violations against stateless people.

• Empowerment of the economic system and infrastructure of each member state in order to anticipate problems arising from violations.

• Allocation of additional budget to local administration organizations for undertaking duties to handle basic problems, as well as the management of basic human rights.

• A recent Cabinet Resolution to be rendered for es-tablishment of “the Bureau for Solving Problems and Restoring Livelihood of Stateless People, Ethnic Groups and Indigenous Tribes” in Thailand.

• Establishment of an “Organization or Institution” to attend stateless people, ethnic groups, and indigenous tribes through a “Special Social and Cultural Area” approach in the member states.

• New media and volunteerism among ordinary people.

• Lack of understanding among the governmental officials or authorities which are posted by the central administra-tion in absence of representatives of local people.

• Lack of coordination among NGOs and governmental officials including lack of understanding about basic structure of the society.

• Existing intra-governmental incentives are not orches-trated with national policy. For example, an immigra-tion police and other government officials in Thailand generate revenue from renewal of permission to stay documents and permission to travel documents. When these stateless become citizens they will lose this revenue stream.

• Discord or separation between national citizens and stateless people.

• Enforcement of law that is not suitable for multiculturalism and ethnic diversity, for example, under the Burmese Citizenship Law 1982, the Rohingya had been de-clared as a “non-national” or “foreign resident.”6

• Deprivation of free movements across the border as an attempt to prevent displaced people or stateless people from traveling back to their origins.

• Problem concerning boundary delimitation among the member states.

IMPLICATIONS

REFERENCESMorison, A. and Sidasathian, C. (February 24, 2011). Rohingya Remain Unwanted as Secrecy Covers Treatment of Boatpeople. Phuket Wan Tourism News. Retrieved from http://phuketwan.com/tourism/rohingya- remain-unwanted-secrecy-covers-treatment-boatpeo ple-15555/Senakham, T.(2012). Thai diaspora and limitations of nation-state knowledge in Thai society, Doctorate Dissertation, Faculty of Political Science, Bangkok, Thammasat University. (In Thai)UNHCR Global Report 2011 Retrieved from http://www.unhcr.org/4fd6f87f9.html

DRIVERS

INHIBITORS

ABOUT THE AUTHORSThanida Boonwanno is a lecturer at the faculty of Social Sciences, Naresuan University. She is now a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at Aix-Marseille Université , France. Prior to this, she received her Master’s degree in Southeast Asian Studies from Chulalongkorn University, Thailand and a Masters degree in anthropology from Université de Provence, France. Her fields of expertise are in ethnography, anthropological theory, and anthropology of the frontier.

Yodpol Thepsitthar is a lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Naresuan University. He graduated from Faculty of Laws, Chulalongkorn University. He also received a Masters of Laws (Public law) from the same university. Now, he is a Ph.D. candidate on Advanced Administrative Law (emphasizing Local Administrative law) at Aix-Marseille Université (Paul Cézanne Aix-Marseille III), France.

the Cambodians cross the border every morning to work in thailand. (Checkpoint at hat lek, khlong yai district, trat province)

Seen as normal, the Cambodians wait for the checkpoint to open since early morning. (Checkpoint at hatlek, khlong yai district , trat province)

6 This law designated three categories of citizens: 1) full citizens, 2) associate citizens, and 3) naturalized citizens.4 Prior to this incident, he had been a non-nationality people and his name was officially registered in the identification card as Burmese people although he was not born at Burma and his parents have no Burmese nationality.5 On January 13, 2012, the Burmese government signed an initial peace agreement with the Karen National Union. According to the media sources, The Shan State Progress Party signed two peace agreements on 28 January and the New Mon State Party made an initial peace agreement with the Burmese government on February 1, 2012 (Briefing paper no.1 of the Burma Center for Ethnic Studies Peace and Reconciliation, 2012).

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INTERVIEWW I T HMs. Somsook Boonyabancha

Can you briefly describe how you came across the concept of collective housing? Why is it unique, or in your experience what makes it attractive for Southeast Asia?

“After my undergraduate work, I continued my studies in Denmark, and this is where they have quite a wide range of collective housing projects. There were different levels of collectivity that I witnessed from this society. And it was wonderful. It means, though, that you have to pull the scattered, individual people into some form of sharing. I saw this and I was inspired by it. After the study, I worked with the National Housing Authority for twelve years, and you could sort of search for how the people’s housing problem could be solved. Apart from solving the housing, you build housing projects. You are building communities, building social networks and society. The real meaning of our housing projects is in fact much deeper than the simple body of houses. I learned from my time of slum upgrading that our projects must support the existing community in order to rebuild themselves into a stronger community with a secure housing option.”

“When people live together there are a lot of social elements in that. You are actually bringing scattered people to live together, or if you look at the case of the slums, you have people who live together in an unorganized manner. If we are going to make a more secure public housing option

for these people, we must think of this community dimension. We can’t just look at the physi-cal form of houses or material for the houses – like a person’s body, we also need the soul. We need feeling, we need integration and all the organs, and it is not just the body, or the physical housing structure itself, but what is built inside. Most housing today is just the form, or the body – without soul.”

“As an architect, I see my role, or our role, as a facilitator. Architects are not supposed to be the ones who take over the power, and force others to live within their design. It is not necessary for it to work like this – architects can talk with the people, and discuss with them how they would like to build their community – what would be the form and how can we make our community stronger? where can the children play? where are the social spaces?…etc.”

“From when I studied in Denmark, the collective was seen as positive – empowering people and promoting a community. Sometimes though, a collective approach may not be supported if there are too many rules and regulations, and the people who make these rules and regulations hold all the power and control. There is a need for the community – the community is like an immune system for the body, it protects individuals. For poor people, who live in the slums, once you change your status to a more secure citizen with a legal status for your housing, suddenly the market comes into the area automatically. Once you start the proper development suddenly the very formal, very powerful market comes into the area. It can start to kick the people out. Now, if the rights of the people provided to be too individual, then the poor cannot deal with it, but if poor people link together as a group, you can have a discussion about the situation and find ways to work out together. Poor people have lots of difficulties and shaky finances – a family owes money, or the father gets sick, your child has to go to school and you don’t have the money –you will probably decide to sell your land in order to get money. But if you have a group, and you have a community fund, you have a welfare system in which everyone can help the other and where land is owned by cooperatives, which means that individuals cannot sell the land to any outsider on their own, but must sell land back to the cooperatives. This welfare system allows families who have problems to have assistance, and ask for help from their community – they can deal more about it as a group. The group makes careful decisions, because the loan is given as a wholesale loan, meaning that the group must pay the loan back together, and the group must collect from each family to repay the loan. If one family cannot pay for a few months, then the entire group will have problems.”

Can you briefly describe the Baan Mankong Collec-tive Housing Project? What did the project contribute towards the field of architecture that was not known before or previously been studied? What were the

challenges of the project?

“This Baan Mankong collective housing is, in some ways, a new way of solving urban poor housing by the poor people themselves. The key difference in the Baan Mankong project, compared to others, is that it is a project of the poor people – they are the

owners and the main actors.”

“The biggest issue about slums is that more and more poor people are coming into these slums every day. The supply-led approach cannot keep up with the scale of this real demand and diversity, so first you must look at scale realistically. People are actually the scale. Communities of the poor people themselves, who are the scale. So we must translate the scale of this problem of these hundreds of thousands or millions in the slums – into a solution by getting the poor to become active actors instead of passive ones, just waiting for somebody to do things for you. If the poor can come together, and start to plan together, and start to work together, everyone can be a part of the project or the solutions by actively saving the financials together and working

for their desirable housing solutions together as one community. Scale is important, empowering the community as a key actor, and using finance as a flexible tool to reach and to open up to various housing development possibilities by urban poor communities themselves, which are all crucial elements for the success of a collective housing project.”

“Finance is a key element in these projects. Poor people need capital for their housing development. The money is managed by the commu-nity, which means having the ability to manage; you need to build your capacity up to the point where the external support can trust them enough to manage their own money. Once they have the money to spend accord-ing to their plans and their process, this project instantly becomes unlike any other government project or most development agency projects.”

This project is often referred to as a project that is for, from, and by the poor. Can you talk about the participation of the poor in this project? How did Baan Mankong improve the lives of the poor living in this community?

“What the poor people don’t have is the kind of funding necessary to support what they would like to do [secure their housing] or the funding system by the poor in our society. The formal system prevents the poor from participating. If you are poor you are out – you cannot access monetary support. There is no funding to answer the initiation by the poor to improve their housing. This is the case for many countries in Asia. In Thailand we came to this possible change in 1992, when I supported Khun Paiboon Wattanasiritham work to set up the Community Development Fund. This community funding was very friendly to the poor and directly for the poor. With the development of this community finance system and possible funding support, the poor started to become stronger, and a lot more initiation could happen by the people because funding is a flexible tool – with funding, you can decide to build flats or a two-story, or move here or there; many possible, diverse options according to different kinds of location, conditions or expectations can become available to the poor that never existed before. So from 1992 until around 2003 we supported funding to the community to initiate a solution, but they had to be organized and get the land themselves, and everyone, no matter how poor, affordable or not very affordable, all had to be onboard. It is their project, their model. This was the Baan Mankong program – it was advanced along the way, and at the time you are working as you can gather a lot of knowledge from the poor and from the past. You could borrow the good ideas from other successful collective housing projects in the country and from others in Asia – and share knowledge to create a better housing collective project.”

“What Baan Mankong did for the poor – was show them that they could be active participants in their change and progress. Once Community A was able to negotiate with the landlord, secure rights to the land, and get the financial support and move forward with their plans, the other communities thought “What are they doing – we should do that, too!” If your peer can do something, you can also do something. It stirs excite-ment within other communities to enable themselves to become actors and find solutions with their landlords as well. We open the possibility for the poor people to become active land acquisition actors. In terms of searching or securing land for the poor, the government always gets stuck around acquiring land – it is very difficult, and land is the key issue to make the change from people insecure and with poor housing to proper decent housing. By enabling a big number of poor people to search and to negotiate for the land themselves, land acquisition options become open for the people. You can pass the burden of the land acquisition to the people – but it is good because they become active actors by doing so. In my long working experience, I have found out that of all the housing development actors, the most passionate are the poor, because no one wants to be poor or be illegal forever, but you just don’t know what to do – you can’t see the way, so you just sit and are passive and wait for somebody to help, but nobody comes close to that. So once you can show the poor that they can be an active actor and we are ready, the money is ready, the network and the city is ready, and the support is ready, you initiate the green light. Suddenly they become so active – and they are enormous and powerful.”

“The poor communities have a good thing – and that is a good social network. When you don’t have much – you have each other. When you need a contractor, you don’t have to look far beyond your community and social network to find one. And because of your social network, you can get a better rate for hire than if you went to the formal market. This social force can reduce the price and cost that it takes to build housing and the poor people can negotiate and make for lower prices on the construction of their house. This is part of the reason or the way that the poor can get proper housing. Once they have the support financially,

they can negotiate to ensure that their money goes a long way in the building and development of their new house.”

As this sharing and collective concept is introduced into the community in terms of collective housing, are there other aspects that become more collective for the community as well? In essence, is there a snowballing

effect of collectivity – where one aspect of collectivity, communal housing, leads to other areas of collectiveness?

“If land is collective, we do believe and have seen other things become collective. The social development elements and cohe-sion will also be developed together with secure housing. For instance, most communities often initiate a welfare program,

where local people will contribute money within the community to help with the management of the community as well as offer to those families in need. These community welfare programs help provide support for school fees for the children or provide scholarship funds for education, or to help the sick and elderly – whatever kinds of issues arise within the community are taken up by the welfare program.”

“Communities along canals often initiated environmental activities to raise awareness about keeping the canals clean, and organized monthly clean-ups of the canals and treatment plans. In addition, many communities supported local gardens so that food and community agriculture or vegetables could be cultivated locally.”

“By giving these individuals and communities a legal place to live and to work together as community network, their rights as equal citizens will also be accepted. Communities can become more involved in government health and education initiatives as well as other government programs. There is a change in the relationship between the poor and the government, or the poor and the politicians, because as their land becomes legitimate, they are given a larger voice within society. Previously, they had a poor relationship within the system, but by being organized, being accepted, and being a part of the network, they are able to change their political status. You become an active citizen and a part of the whole city and have better negotiation power when talking to politicians or whomever.”

Can collective housing projects work everywhere? How are they able to do so? What is the most impor-tant aspect of successfully implementing a collecting housing project?

“This kind of housing project can work anywhere. After Thailand, I started working to support all of Asia through the Asian Coalition for Community Action. We are building these collective communi-ties and housing upgrades across Asia – in Cambodia, Indonesia,

Laos, the Philippines, Viet Nam, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Nepal and more! These projects are doing well because it is our belief in human beings that makes it possible, and makes this so different. We believe that human beings are equal and that humans have the ability to manage their own lives and our system. We believe that everybody has this potential. Of course people need a period of transition where they begin to work as a group and save money together and believe that they can make change themselves. Once you pass this stage, by seeing others, by talking, and by working together, little by little you can eradicate that myth that they are unable. We are free – and in fact we have been free since the beginning, but society taught us to buy into the myth that poor people cannot think, they need to be taught, that they cannot take care of money, of themselves – but this is not true! In order for collective housing projects to work, you have to realize that this potential is there, it is just a matter of how we unlock it. You must open up the space so that it can be organized into a stronger force of change. Society has pushed them down and condemned them but we have found an active support process in which their creativity and voice is heard to build a proper community to fit themselves. Baan Mankong and other collective housing projects share this belief in this great potential of every human being.”

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ABOUTMS. SOMSOOK BOONYABANCHAMs. Somsook Boonyabancha is currently the Secretary General of Asian Coalition for Housing Rights, a coalition of organizations working on urban poor housing development in Asia. She was also for-mer Director of the Community Organizations Devel-opment Institute in Thailand. She had her background study in Architecture from Chulalongkorn University in Thailand and in the Housing and Urbanization Course in Copenhagen, Denmark during 1977-1978.

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issue 22 collectivism aug 2012

Documents

sharing land

collective sharing

rural people

community ownership

southeast asiainterview

community combinesfor

farming equipment

local people