Resettling,disconnecting or displacing? Attending to local sociality,culture and history in disaster settings

In many disaster settings, top‐down responses emphasise ‘expert‐led’ solutions that often involve relocating disaster‐affected communities. While the intention might be to move people from harm's way and facilitate recovery, failure to attend to local pre‐disaster circumstances as well as the interplay between power, resilience and vulnerability within and around affected communities often sees resettlement reconfigure as displacement or disconnection. This oversight may even usher in a new phase of dispossession and disadvantage for marginalised groups (particularly in colonial settings). This paper explores experiences in Australia, Japan and Taiwan to reflect on what issues of local sociality, local culture and local resilience need to be attended to in framing ‘better’ disaster responses.     

Trading places: Inclusive cities and market vending in the Pacific Islands

Rapid population growth in Pacific island cities far exceeds employment opportunities and is contributing to rising urban inequality and social exclusions. Livelihoods in the informal urban sector, such as market vending, provide much needed income, rural–urban connectivity and food security, but remain largely excluded from policy and planning frameworks. Spatial, economic and social exclusions limit vendors’ economic advancement, their influence over decision‐making, and their access to basic services. Local communities close to informal markets fill some of the gaps left by the policy neglect, but investment and strategic management remains inadequate when vendors do not have secure market places and recognised rights to work. This article reports on a study of three informal markets in Honiara, Solomon Islands. These markets lack legal status but make significant contributions to urban development and economic opportunities. Drawing on surveys and focus groups with vendors and urban decision‐makers we explore the impact of informal markets on urban economies, how social and institutional relationships hinder vendors’ economic advancement, and the opportunities to create more inclusive livelihoods that could contribute to equitable cities.     

Forced evictions,spatial (un)certainties and the making of exemplary centres in Indonesia

This article considers the relationship between forced evictions and the ‘exemplary centre’ through an examination of three urban waterfront sites in Indonesia in comparative perspective. How is the notion of the ‘exemplary centre’ related to forced evictions and the aspirations of marginalised populations in contemporary cities of Indonesia? What are the chances of asserting alternative ideologies when a capital‐centric and modernist vision of the city as ‘exemplary centre’ dominates official planning paradigms? Competing visions of the ‘exemplary centre’ arise from distinct centres of power, from the state level to the grassroots community level; however, the dominant state vision of urban space is often internalised by those most at risk of displacement by modernist projects. Strategies to thwart forced evictions in riverbank settlements in Jakarta, Solo, and Surabaya offer alternative imaginings of the ‘exemplary centre’ – imaginings that enable the urban poor to visualise their hopes and to overcome the spatial uncertainties that characterise their everyday lives. While these efforts indicate resistance to marginalisation, they also provide a distinct kind of ‘exemplary’ vision based on residents’ own understanding of ideal city living. Concurrently, some alignment to existing ‘exemplary centre’ narratives is traceable in the effort to assert these alternatives.     

Regulation of space in the contemporary postcolonial Pacific city: Port Moresby and Suva

Abstract: National development problems in the weak states of Papua New Guinea and Fiji have resulted in external intervention. However neo‐liberal development strategies have not resolved development problems and may have further weakened state structures. In both capital cities rural‐urban migration, rising urban unemployment, and the expansion of squatter settlements and the informal sector have all continued in recent years. The numbers of beggars, street kids and prostitutes have increased, as has domestic violence and crime. Governments have opposed all these trends, by regulation and intolerance, violence, routine repression and eviction, rather than by pro‐poor policies. Settlers, prostitutes, beggars, street kids and market vendors have been evicted and moved on, on the ideological premise that that their true place is in rural areas, and that their urban presence challenges and threatens notions of urban order. Moral regulation, social exclusion and moral panic have divided ‘good citizens’ from marginal and possibly criminal others, intensifying social divisions within the cities. Sustainable urban development has proved difficult to achieve.     

Urban poverty alleviation strategies in Yogyakarta,Indonesia: Contrasting opportunities for community development

A multidimensional understanding of poverty includes the access of poor groups to decision‐making processes based on their needs and aspirations. However, the realisation of this ‘right to make decisions’ faces multiple obstacles. Over the last 20 years in Indonesia, in a context of a more democratic political environment and policy decentralisation, poverty alleviation policies have followed institutional arrangements to provide communities with opportunities for greater participation in development projects. Poverty data show a clear improvement in the living conditions of urban poor citizens in Indonesia; however, it is unclear whether poor communities have become stronger and more independent from public grants and better able to make their own decisions. This research analysed two urban poor communities in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and found that some communities working on participatory poverty alleviation strategies still face obstacles to becoming more independent and making their own decisions because they remain part of an historical legacy of top‐down approaches to poverty, highly dependent on government support and working only within ‘invited spaces’. Conversely, those communities with more limited access to government funding have been more innovative in their strategies and have created ‘invented spaces’ for collective action that allows them to be more independent and empowered.     

Building knowledge city in transformation era: Knowledge‐based urban development in Beijing in the context of globalisation and decentralisation

This study examines knowledge‐based urban development in Beijing with the objective of revealing the impact of the ‘synergetic’ forces of globalisation and local government intervention on knowledge‐based urban development in the context of the coexisting processes of globalisation and decentralisation. The findings in this paper show that due to the rapid growth of the cultural industry sector, knowledge‐based urban development has created various kinds of ‘cultural industry clustered areas’, which were recently promoted by the 2008 Olympic Games. ‘Synergetic’ global and local forces are leading knowledge‐based urban development, with the emergence of a local coalition regime in which local government manages local development, considered as ‘enterprises’ in the decentralisation process, while the State retains a significant influence on knowledge‐based urban development. The central and municipal governments tend to emphasise strategies to ‘facilitate the climate for growth’ rather than the centrally planned control they exerted prior to the 1980s.     

Typhoon Yolanda and post‐disaster resilience: Problems and challenges

After Typhoon Yolanda devastated the Philippines, ‘resilient’ was a term frequently used by the media, survivors, government officials and various other stakeholders in the city of Tacloban to describe those affected by the disaster. The focus of this article is therefore on how this term was articulated and experienced during this period. The analysis covers how resilience was discursively deployed to describe the condition of residents who were, in fact, often suffering from a double process of dispossession: once by the typhoon and once more by government policy and the inequitable distribution of relief goods and services due to the inadequacies of the disaster response. Despite these inadequacies, Tacloban was presented as ‘an exemplary centre’ of the post‐Typhoon Yolanda relief effort. I argue that the overarching rhetoric and strategies of resilience became rituals aimed at normalising modes of profit‐seeking and recreating the unequal socio‐economic status quo. These rituals occurred at multiple levels; however, the fortunes of Tacloban were indelibly intertwined with the political credibility and status pride of the Marcos/Romualdez family. I argue that ‘resilience’ is a complex, overused, manipulated and contested term and that a more transparent understanding of resilience for disaster relief and rehabilitation is needed.     

Twenty‐first century nomadic city: Ger districts and barriers to the implementation of the Ulaanbaatar City Master Plan

Since the early 1990s, Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, has experienced rapid rural to urban migration and population growth resulting in the growth in informal settlements across the city. The informal settlements are known as ‘ger’ districts. In response to these pressures, since the 1990s, the central government has adopted a programme of land reform and metropolitan planning. These new reforms take place in the context of a unique, post‐socialist political, economic and institutional context. The land reform process has attempted to privatise land ownership, which has traditionally resided with the state. The privatisation process was initiated under the new Constitution of Mongolia, which initiated reforms in all sectors of social and economic development, and since 2003, targeted land reform in ger districts. Running parallel, a series of urban land‐use planning schemes have been introduced to frame the development of Ulaanbaatar in the context of an emerging market economy. Although master plans for urban development have been established since the 1950s, urban land‐use planning is a new concept in this emerging market economy. The aim of this paper is to trace the rationales and challenges of implementing master plans and land privatisation processes in Ulaanbaatar. Drawing on interviews with city, national and local government officials conducted in 2009, the paper focuses on the implications of these reforms for both the government and the residents of ger districts.     

Contested notions of disaster justice during the 2011 Bangkok floods: Unequal risk,unrest and claims to the city

The 2011 Bangkok floods, a slow onset event, flooded significant parts of the city. The state's response to flooding followed a traditional cultural and hierarchical approach to justice within Thailand, stemming from Buddhist values, an informal caste system and monarchical order. This resulted in a spatially uneven outcome, with the ‘preservation’ of the central city and two‐month‐long floods in outer suburbs, exacerbated by inadequate management and coordination. Suburban communities sought a more egalitarian notion of disaster justice, with hazard burdens shared more equitably and people having adequate access to decision‐making over the distribution of disaster risk and compensation for damage. Extensive damage, and reduced livelihoods, caused friction between the two views, and protests, contestations and conflicts during the floods, in four different community contexts in northern Bangkok. By generating alternative discourses, challenging the hierarchical notion of justice and taking direct action to removing floodwalls, protesters sought to reshape the spatiality of the floodwater and claim inclusive citizenship and their right to the city. Existing perceptions of disaster justice, usually focused on liberal state responses to understanding disasters as natural episodes, are alone inadequate to explain the outcomes of and responses to disasters in different cultural contexts.     

The violence of homelessness: Exile and arbitrary detention in Cambodia's war on the poor

This article examines the plight of homeless peoples in Phnom Penh, Cambodia as a consequence of their enmeshment in a new logic of urban governance being rolled out by city officials and municipal planners. The widespread adoption of neoliberal economics has resulted in a globalised version of urban entrepreneurialism, to which Phnom Penh is a participant. The (re)production of enterprise zones, cultural spectacles, waterfront development, and privatised forms of local governance all reflect the powerful disciplinary effects of interurban competition as cities aggressively engage in mutually destructive place‐marketing policies. Against this neoliberal backdrop, the ongoing pattern of violence utilised by municipal authorities against homeless peoples in Phnom Penh is part of a gentrifying process that the local government has dubbed a ‘beautification’ agenda. Of particular concern is how city officials have begun actively promoting the criminalization of the urban homeless and poor through arbitrary arrests and illegal detention, holding them in so‐called re‐education or ‘rehabilitation’ centres. Yet these centres are not what they seem. Such euphemisms attempt to mask the systemic abuse of marginalised peoples who are deemed to present Phnom Penh in a negative light and are consequently unwanted on the streets of the capital city.     

Researching ‘sustainable consumption’ in Asia‐Pacific cities

Abstract: Asia‐Pacific cities are experiencing substantial environmental problems, which require innovative policy approaches. One newly emergent policy strand is that of ‘sustainable consumption’. This approach aims to reduce environmental degradation by encouraging all consumers to adopt more environmentally friendly modes of behaviour, especially those living in congested and environmentally degraded urban areas. Although a promising initiative, significant conceptual and practical problems exist with sustainable consumption's current policy framework. However, rather than abandon the idea completely, consumption should become central to researching environmental issues in Asia‐Pacific cities. Here, a ‘political ecology’ approach frames all forms of consumption as revealing political, economic and cultural practices and modes of distributions that give rise to current unsustainable outcomes. Through in‐depth examinations of current forms of consumption, this approach aims to offer a challenging perspective for future research into Asia‐Pacific urban environmental problems.     

The peri‐urban Pacific: From exclusive to inclusive cities

Abstract: As the Pacific Islands continue to urbanise, existing models of governance and planning are coming under greater pressure and scrutiny. Both the city council approach and the ‘good’ urban governance agenda of donors have weaknesses in the region, especially in dealing with peri‐urban settlements where the most rapid urban population growth is occurring. This is resulting in increased social discontent and conflict. This paper critiques the ways in which Pacific Island towns and cities are governed and calls for an approach which is more inclusive (and less hierarchical) and informed by concepts of citizenship and social justice. Indeed, policy makers will need to broaden their concepts and practices of governance if many Pacific cities are to be socially, politically, and envir‐onmentally sustainable. However, the political‐economy of urban development in the region is not proving conducive to consensus, with conflict a more likely outcome in the foreseeable future.     

The peri‐urbanisation of Shanghai: Planning,growth pattern and sustainable development

Abstract: With the increase of global integration, the peri‐urban area (PUA) of megacities in Asia has become a favourite destination for foreign direct investment (FDI). This paper uses the PUA of Shanghai as a case study to investigate the impact of global forces on the urban expansion of the city, and the link between urban growth and sustainable development in this mega‐urban context. Shanghai has grown impressively during the past two decades in terms of economic and physical transformation. Much of this transformation has rested on the unbridled exploitation of land and other environmental resources in its peri‐urban area. This is characterised by the designation of development zones and the concentration of manufacturing FDI, resulting in dispersed growth and environmental degradation. The disruption of the physical environment, combined with the concentration of the urban poor in these areas (in particular ‘temporary migrants’), has turned the PUA into a potential crisis point threatening the social and economic development of the city.     

Urban squatters and the poor in Fiji: Issues of land and investment in coastal areas

Pacific land issues are not only about Indigenous ownership in rural areas. Within urban areas in particular, land historically alienated into State control produced consequences only now being realised. In Fiji, all State land is claimed by communal landowners and such claims were said to be one reason for the 2006 coup. It has been suggested in recent times that urban informal settlements on the qoliqoli (coastal and foreshore land) are at risk and face increasing challenges from landowners. This paper examines a neglected area of urban State land in Fiji and comments on the future of the urban poor in Fiji if land tenure is unresolved.     

Spectre of neoliberal gentrification in Fiji: the price Suva's poor must pay

This article seeks to examine Fiji's current housing crisis against the backdrop of neoliberal urbanism. In doing so, the article offers a fresh new perspective on the marginalisation, displacement and outright exclusion of the urban poor from the inner city areas of Suva. Among the trademark growth problems experienced by neoliberal cities across the globe, the crisis of urban housing affordability is perhaps more pronounced in Suva given economies of scale and constraints in Fiji's land tenure system. This article seeks to highlight that Suva's inner city spaces are being transformed along the lines of market fundamentalism and that this will exacerbate the social exclusion and displacement of Suva's poor.     

Negotiating ‘home’ and ‘national identity’: Chinese‐Malaysian transmigrants in Singapore

Abstract: Part of the globalisation phenomenon involves an increasing number of elite transmigrants traversing national boundaries in response to the global demand for skilled labour while maintaining multifaceted social ties astride political, geographic and cultural borders, linking home and host countries together. As transmigrants ‘live’ in several communities simultaneously, their identities, behaviour and values are often not limited by location. Thus, notions of ‘home’ and ‘national identity’ are also being reviewed given the discrepancies between these concepts and locality. In this context, this paper explores questions of ‘home’ and ‘national identity’ among skilled Chinese‐Malaysians working and residing in Singapore, portraying them as active participants of two (or more) countries. It focuses on their strategies and struggles in negotiating ideologies of ‘home’ and ‘national identities’ across borders in a setting of two neighbouring countries umbilically linked in a volatile political relationship. It further examines their degree of concern in the political affairs of both countries. Between ‘home’ and ‘host’, Chinese‐Malaysians redefine their practices of home(‐making) in relation to their national identity, drawing on the resources and resilience of familial ties, nostalgic memories and other practical lifecourse needs.     

Practices of place‐making: Globalisation and locality in the Philippines

Abstract: Global flows of people and information in the Asia–Pacific region are creating new forms of place that stretch across national boundaries and rural–urban distinctions. These new mobile forms of place link long‐inhabited rural areas to cities, national centres, and to rural frontiers within the nation. Here, we describe new forms of place that are being produced by contemporary migration and economic change, using data from the Philippines and applying Appadurai's theorisation of translocality. Our analysis links these flows of overseas migrants to concomitant processes of economic change, migration and new rural livelihoods. We outline changing practices of place within the Philippines, exploring ways that transnational migration can articulate with apparently ‘local’ development and the flow‐on effects from migration on the spatial patterns of rural livelihoods.     

The untold flavour of street food: Social infrastructure as a means of everyday politics for street vendors in Bandung,Indonesia

The existing literature on street vendors has largely examined processes of marginalisation of informal enterprises amid rapid urban development. At the same time, the resistance methods of street vendors against the constraints of urban development have been extensively explored. However, these studies tend to focus on the binary position between informal and formal, as well as on the overt confrontation and conflicts between vendors and the state, which risks simplifying the heterogeneity of interests in the everyday practice of street vending. Delving into the daily work of street vendors in Bandung city, this article explores the everyday practice of traders in order to identify their subtle forms of resistance to removal and to the negative perceptions attached to them. By adopting the analytics of ‘people as infrastructure’ (Simone, 2004) and the idea of ‘building blocks of success’ for small enterprises (Turner, 2003), this article argues that social infrastructure is constituted and practiced through the construction of personal relationships and varied forms of informal economic exchange between vendors and their customers, informal organisers and neighbours, as well as through the adoption of new technology. Social infrastructures have become a means of building everyday politics for street vendors and a vital way of challenging the negative perception attached to street vending activities.     

Place,memory and identity: Imagining ‘New Asia’

Abstract: The rapid transformation of Asian societies and landscapes, especially since the mid‐1990s, has engendered much conjecture of the ‘Asian renaissance’ and the rise of a ‘New Asia’. This Special Edition of Asia Pacific Viewpoint explores the intersecting themes of ‘urban place’, ‘social memory’ and ‘cultural identity’ in the articulation of and contestation towards New Asia. Specifically, the six articles here offer various interpretations of New Asia – as tourism marketing tool, political vision and social identity – and the politics involved in urban, tourism and cultural development. From colonial hotels in key South‐East Asian cities to the historic waterfront of Singapore; from festivals and rituals in Hong Kong, Hoi An (Vietnam) and Penang (Malaysia) to the clash of cultural values in Manggarai (Indonesia), ‘selective remembering’ and ‘ideological forgetting’ are central to the construction of New Asian identities. Ultimately, this Special Edition hopes to provoke continuing discussions on the rhetoric of New Asia and its imaginative and contested geographies, sociologies and histories.     

Detecting the intellectual pathway of resilience thinking in urban and regional studies: A critical reflection on resilience literature

Confronted with increasing natural and anthropogenic crises, sustainable urban and regional development requires a sound understanding of how cities and regions respond to those crises and how that response shapes their continued development. The conceptual ambiguity and missing link among varied perspectives of resilience studies have given rise to a sneaking suspicion about the contribution of resilience thinking. By conducting a network analysis of 1,274 papers published between 1991 and 2019 using CiteSpace, we detect and visualize the intellectual pathway of resilience thinking and argue for its malleability to deepen our understanding about human-environment dynamics. Three major research clusters were identified: adaptive capacity of ecosystems, regional variation in economic resilience, and social resilience of disadvantaged communities. Resistance and recovery of systems are the key concerns in the first two clusters, whereas social resilience emphasizes opportunities and processes of restructuring rather than returning to the pre-crisis status. The extension of resilience thinking to the social realm is a promising area for future research. It calls for a shift of epistemology from the deterministic structure-function hypothesis which is place-less toward a situated understanding of context, relation, and human adaptation despite the methodological challenges ahead.