ISTR Fourth International Conference Dublin, Ireland / July 5-8, 2000 The Third Sector: For What and For Whom?

Orathai Ard-am orathaidir@hotmail.com

The presentation will be based on the result of research project on "Community-based Urban Environmental Management in Asia", which was the collaboration between various universities in Asia and the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The research project was carried out between 1992-1995 and was a kind of action research that the researchers played many roles such as facilitators, supporters and also motivators. In fact, community initiatives alone were not sufficient to lead poor communities towards better situations. The inputs (various types: financial supports, knowledge, conceptual framework, ideas, appropriate technologies, facilitators, etc.) from outside supporters provided to poor communities were so important to assist the communities resurfaced and/or upgraded amidst their own poverty and desperate problems. However, we found that the community we worked with is also enriched with its own social capital. Therefore, after the project was terminated in late 1995, some of the project research team members (particularly myself)still from time to time paid visits to the research site (or one of the urban poor communities called Wat Chonglom)in Bangkok. By doing that, on-going research experiences and community-based knowledge have been developed and more fruitful data has also been obtained. In this case, a kind of longitudinal study method was adopted in order to evaluate the on-going interactions between the community (or the research site) and the local state-officials in one of the most important districts in Bangkok in terms of support of the local government for project innovation. The presentation, thus, attempts to analyze the relationships between the community of the poor and the state by using the concepts of social capital and community-state relations. The content of the presentation will begin with the situation of urbanization and environmental problems in the Pacific Asian region, particularly in the city of Bangkok and how this situation affects the poor or the lowest strata of the urban population. The overall characteristics of Bangkok slums and squatters as well as the specific situation, particularly the environment of the community in study will also be elaborated and discussed. The following sections of the presentation will deal with explaining community successes in coping with socio-economic-environmental problems, the analysis of community social capital and/or the community capacity for social capital formation and also the analysis of community-state relations. In explaining community successes, the factors of household, inter-household and interpersonal networks as well as community leaderships are stressed and discussed. The notion of state-community relations and interactions both positive and negative aspects are well observed and debated. We also discover that central and local governments interface with poor communities in different ways. In building on what we call "social capital", it is demonstrated that not just civil society alone but rather mutually supportive state-society synergies underlie the capacity for economic and social development. Looking toward the future, in the case of Bangkok a move into the state-community synergy realm would require a substantial enhancement of the state's capacity to respond to the manifold problems that are arising with the urban transition that is now peaking in Thailand.

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