From Grassroots Shacks to the Towers of Power: Relationship Building of Transnational Urban Poor Networks. Experiences from Africa and Asia 1

This chapter examines new interfaces between transnational networks of urban poor in the field of housing and the state. The focus is on the activities of two networks: Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI) ² and the ‘sister model’ the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR), that in the case of Thailand is linked to the Community Organizations Development Institute (CODI) and the National Union of Low Income Community Organizations (NULICO) on a national level, and within the region of Asia is linked to the Urban Poor Coalition Asia (UPCA) ³ . Whereas both networks seek to transform power relations through their transnational practices supporting empowerment and learning processes of local federations (see Chapter 2 in this volume), the focus here will be placed on the ‘quality leaps’ created through extending transnational practices such as enumerations of households and settlements, introducing saving schemes and fostering translocal exchanges with the aim to strengthen relationship-building to the state and international agencies. These practices – it is suggested – aim not only at an internal empowerment effect, but also at external effects in terms of strengthening negotiating power vis-à-vis external actors. The ‘quality leaps’ that are created by extending these practices to outside actors seem to be the formation of new intersections – or new governance spaces – with the state outside institutional channels. The hypothesis is that the ‘quality leaps’ created by extending transnational mechanisms to state actors are transforming power positions and assertiveness of the urban poor within the housing field. This will be illustrated by arguing that the emergence of internationally networked urban poor groups, backed up by global allies, has led to a new culture of negotiation at the local level. To do so the chapter is structured in three parts: firstly, it reveals the housing policy context in which the transnational networks are embedded. Secondly, it will outline how the process of relationship-building from local to global networks is extended to state actors (‘quality leaps’) and thirdly, it will discuss what political impact becomes evident in the three countries South Africa, Thailand and the Philippines and what general implications one can draw for the discourse on housing and urban development.