Access to secure housing is a basic requirement for human dignity, and yet millions of people are under the threat of eviction. Amidst the global housing crisis, there has been an emergence of social movements defying the hegemonic concept of individualistic property rights. The discussion around the urban commons is in line with this struggle. Thailand’s slum upgrading program, Bann Mankong, is a great example of practising collective rights over land and housing. Starting from 2003 with ten pilot projects, Bann Mankong has scaled up successfully to 1,231 projects covering 112,777 households as of 2019. Impressed by its success, a lot of literature on Bann Mankong tried to extract lessons on how to replicate the model elsewhere. However, while it stresses its applicability, less has been discussed about the country-specific context of Thailand, which gave birth to this program. Similarly, the focus on the participatory aspect of the program diluted the fact that Bann Mankong is a government-initiated and funded program and the very nature of the CODI, the operating agency of the program, is a government organisation, even if it adopted the flexibility of NGOs.
Guided by Ostrom’s institutional analysis and development framework and Bookchin’s confederal governance, the dissertation identified the hierarchical elements of Bann Mankong’s organisational structure. Also, the dissertation analysed the socio-economic and cultural context around the institution which enabled the emergence of a state-initiated commoning process like Bann Mankong; the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis in Thailand, the notion of ‘sufficiency economy’ combined with Buddhism, the long-held history of public control over land, and grassroots movements. Lastly, the dissertation outlined the limitations of Bann Mankong in terms of inclusivity, financial sustainability, and gender equality. Especially regarding gender equality, the dissertation illuminated how voluntary labour in creating and managing the urban commons is gendered and underappreciated.
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