In this thesis, the housing stability of the poor was analyzed based on the case study of the urban poor area Baseco Compound in Manila, Philippines. Baseco is an area facing the risk of continuous demolition, and it can be said that housing is unstab...
In this thesis, the housing stability of the poor was analyzed based on the case study of the urban poor area Baseco Compound in Manila, Philippines. Baseco is an area facing the risk of continuous demolition, and it can be said that housing is unstable. Even though the government provide a relocation site, but the poor won't leave Baseco. In this paper, I began by exploring reasons behind this situation.
Therefore, research questions are why there is a constant risk of demolition in baseco, why residents do not leave despite the risk of demolition, how residents respond to demolition orders, and how we, third parties, should view demolition orders and residents' responses.
The research methods is to analyze various documents such as announcements released by the Philippine government or Manila City, interviews with Baseco residents in the media, Philippine NGO reports, reports from Korean and foreign NGOs visiting Baseco, and self-produced materials.
As a theoretical framework, Henri Lefevre's theory of production of space was formded. The theory is that social relations can produce spaces and produced spaces affect social relationships again based on interactions between each other. There are three momentos of spatial production; at first, representation of space, which is planning and arranging spaces according to the ideas, knowledge, and ideology of groups such as governments and urban planners, at second, the representational space, which is experienced as images, symbols, and atmosphere in their daily lives and at third, the living space, which is repeated in people’s daily lives.
Therefore, in this paper, according to the three momentos of space, I analyzed Baseco explaining the situation in which capitalism caused space exploitation and exclusion. In addition, various opportunities were used to reverse the logic of existing spaces and analyze the situation of producing their own space, especially residential space.
First, the government implemented various policies and activities and carried out media reports to create symbols and images that the residents of Baseco are illegal occupied, polluting environment, or were vulnerable to disasters. And the government provided the relocation site with demolition orders. However, the government's actions were actually not only to blame for the residents, but also to acquire a Baseco for a reclamation project. This act can be said to be a government’s abstraction of space focused more on profits from reclamation projects than on the value of a residential area for the poor. In other words, the government's representation of the space is the process of justifying demolition orders and producing abstract spaces.
In the next chapter, I focused on how residents experienced and recognized Baseco during various events. First, they got the opportunity to plan their ideal village by participating in a local plan called People's Plan. This later becomes a spatial imagination that motivated a movement from contradictory space to differential space. Second, the government continues to build various facilities (schools, health centers and disaster shelters) on the largest streets of Baseco, making it a place for residents to experience government power. The poor has experienced alienation by the lack of prevention facilities for natural disasters and basic infrastructure. Finally, in the absence of such a government, multinational companies supported Baseco so that the poor experienced the development of Baseco.
In the next chapter, the poor practically acquired space in response to the demolition order and further showed the spatial practice of residents to produce space as a "genuine residential space." The poor sought help from transnational and religious organizations which supported Baseco before, engaged in political activities such as asigning on the convention with presidential candidates. This is a strategy only for the poor in the Philippines, which has a large role in civil society, and the transnational network formed by multinational private companies in Baseco. In addition, the poor further developed their own identity, ownership, and sense of belonging not only to simply acquiring space, but also participating in garbage collection and PRRC Programme to make a living environment better and operating livelihood programmes with private cooperation.
First of all, I were able to identify the phenomenon in which space was interpreted values as capitalist and was abstracted. The government issued demolition orders for capitalist values, after providing the relocation site as a solution to demolition. And the demolition was seemingly the reclamation project. This was the process of abstracting the value of the residential space called Baseco.
Second, it was possible to identify the specific spatial practices of residents producing their residential space, which is a kind of differential spaces. In addition to acquiring physical property such as land and houses, the poor were making their living space better by improving the residential environment by alleviating poverty through livelihood programs, and improving structures through educational programs.
The Philippine government encourags the poor to move into an empty area, the relocation site or simply lays the roads and build houses for local development rather than reducing housing poverty. However, it only raises the resistance of the poor and does not help to solve serious urban problems. Therefore, the Philippine government needs to focus on spatial production of residents to improve housing condition. In particular, it is necessary to focus on the specificity of space and the spatial practice of the poor to identify the needs of the poor. If the relocation is inevitable, various factors should be considered, such as whether in the relocation site people can live with enough livelihood, education, and community activities.
Non-governmental organizations such as NGOs should also support and encourage residents to produce their own space, not disrupting the production of residential spaces, thus true residential spaces can be produced by residents.
And finally, we, who consume cities and live in cities, should not simply see conflicts between the people of Baseco and the Philippine government as a matter of land ownership. This is because the space of the city has a history and meaning beyond ownership. Therefore, we need a position to embrace and to understand the poor so that they can live together, rather than simply look them as monstrous.