&lt;strong&gt;Translocal networking as a cornerstone for community resilience:&lt;/strong&gt; Activities by the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR)

Astrid Ley

doi:10.3390/ifou2018-05996

Abstract

Research on community resilience has focused strongly on the local features of communities backing resilient behaviour. However, the argument of the paper is that the relationship building of communities beyond the locality represents a significant aspect of community resilience. The aim of this paper is to extend the notion of community resilience by highlighting that in today’s world locality is characterised by connectivity. Communities organized on various levels are considered better equipped to deal e.g. with natural disasters and therefore more resilient. Translocal social resilience approaches mostly focus on migration. Translocal social networks and capacities can be found in migrant communities, but also in those communities that have mobilized into networks beyond their locality around livelihood issues. This translocal community resilience as an emerging concept can learn from earlier studies on transnational urbanism by including aspects of horizontal learning, peer-to-peer support and mobilization to collectively address issues of injustice. The paper refers to findings about the networking of urban poor communities (Herrle, Ley and Fokdal, 2015) and an expert group workshop organized at University of Stuttgart "Collective action and resilience in emerging city regions" (April 2017). Case studies on translocal and transnational community networks in Asia related to the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR) will serve as illustrations.

Highlights

Building resilience is a key aspect of global agendas such as the Agenda 2030 process with the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) and the Habitat III process with the New Urban Agenda and respective indicators that seek to measure vulnerabilities and exposure as well as resilience capacities
I argue that the relationship building of communities beyond the locality represents a significant aspect of community resilience
These collective actions are embedded in transnational networks such as Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI) or the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR)

Summary

Connected communities are more resilient

In today’s world communities are less bound to a place than assumed. Instead communities connect to other communities either within a region, country or even internationally. A prominent example is the recovery process after the Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. It was the low-income community of Vietnamese-Americans that recuperated faster with the support of the globally organized diaspora (Leong et al 2007). An important point of reference here is the emerging concept of translocal social resilience that has emerged in migration studies (Sakdapolrak et al 2016). The key message is: connected communities are more resilient to address shocks and stresses and have the ability to transform their livelihood situation. Translocal social resilience is, not limited to migrant communities as studies in transnational urbanism indicate (Smith 1998, Appadurai 1996, Krätke et al 2012) by pointing to the mutual support of translocal community networks. Particular emphasis will be given to such networks of urban poor communities in Asia

Translocal community networks in Thailand

Concluding remarks