Pathways towards the resilient city: Presupposition of equality and active justice in Bangkok, Thailand

Abstract

This chapter aims to contribute to the reflections on the complex interplay between environmental justice and resilience suggesting a political egalitarian perspective and putting forward a radical demand for socio-ecological transformation. It does so offering a series of reflections about the relationship between aesthetics and politics discussing a case of Baan Mankong housing and community upgrading practice and its regional widely developed net of the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR) in South East Asia. Aiming particularly to contribute to the discussion on the politics of recognition in the context of urban environmental justice, the chapter draws on Jacques Rancière’s work, in particular, his conception of the diddensus and his notion of active equality as for us they are profoundly socio-spatial in nature. Given Rancière’s provocative reflections on politics (la politique), I wish to speculate around such radical definition of active equality that is ‘presumed in the now’ connecting to the conventional conception of distributive equality thought his radical politico-aesthetic thoughts with the resilience-building one.