Worlding aspirations and resilient futures: framings of risk and contemporary city-making in Metro Cebu, the Philippines

Jordana Ramalho

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: In the Philippines, calls for creating ‘global’, ‘sustainable’ and ‘resilient’ cities are placing urban poor communities in increasingly precarious positions. These communities have long been the targets of urban development and ‘modernisation’ efforts; more recently the erasure of informal settlements from Philippine cities is being bolstered at the behest of climate change adaptation and disaster risk management (DRM) agendas. In Metro Cebu, flood management has been at the heart of DRM and broader urban development discussions, and is serving as justification for the demolition and displacement of informal settler communities in areas classed as ‘danger zones’. Using Kusno's (2010) interpretation of the ‘exemplary centre’ as a point of departure, this paper interrogates the relationship between DRM, worlding aspirations (Roy and Ong, 2011) and market-oriented urbanisation in Cebu, and considers the socio-spatial implications of these intersecting processes for urban poor communities. Through analysing the contradictions inherent in framings of certain bodies and spaces as being ‘of risk’ or ‘at risk’ over others, I argue that the epistemologies of modernity, disaster risk and resilience endorsed and propagated by the state are facilitating processes of displacement and dispossession that serve elite commercial interests under the auspices of disaster resilience and pro-poor development.

Keywords: disaster risk reduction and management; Philippines; urban development; resilience; urban slums; worlding (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 13 pages
Date: 2019-04-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-iue, nep-sea and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published in Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 1, April, 2019, 60(1), pp. 24-36. ISSN: 1467-8373

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