by Thomas Manuel The SEANNET team flew into Bangkok on July 15th, the day of the FIFA World Cup final. It was an event that seemed to take on a deeper significance after the recent triumphant rescue of the young Thai football team that had been trapped for weeks. As volunteers flocked from across the world, […]

by Myat Soe Phyu Oral histories tell us that Chanthargyi stupa was built through donations by King Asoka (269 to 232 BCE), an India emperor of the Maurya Dynasty who promoted the spread of Buddhism. At that time, the land around the Chanthargyi stupa was high and lush green and nearby was the east bank […]

by Erik Harms The village (thôn) of Phú Nhuận is said to have existed since 1698, when Nguyễn Hữu Cảnh established taxation regimes for the Nguyễn Lords in what is now known as the southern region of Vietnam. At that time, Phú Nhuận was part of Gia Định Province (Tỉnh Gia Định), Tân Bình prefecture […]

This post is a part of the Escolta project in Manila in the Phillippines. Escolta – circa 1910 (Retro Pilipino, Manila Nostalgia) Escolta – 1945, post-Battle of Manila (Paul Eric Darvin, Manila Nostalgia) Escolta – 1968 (Tewell) Escolta -2016 (Tessa Maria Guazon)

Khun Supap and his younger brother, only two of three silver bowl engravers left in Muen Sarn Silver Neighbourhood, proudly display a beautiful ‘countryside life scene’ on their latest creation. This is a part of the Wua Lai project in Thailand.

I want to submit several photographs that shown on the Old Photography Competition or Lomba Foto Lawas. We held this event during the Indonesian Independence anniversary last year. Kampung people used to commemorate the Independence day by organized many activities including competition. However, we thought that it is much more interesting if we seek the […]

by Boonanan Natakun and Non Arkaraprasertkul During the past six months after Southeast Asian Neighborhood Network (SEANNET) workshop in Bangkok last July, we have been keeping track with what has been happening at project site, the Nang Loeng Neighborhood. Residents, as always, know and therefore welcome us to their homes and speak to us about […]

A nice outcome of the SEANNET network’s work was a collaboration between the Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City local PIs. Boonanan Natakun, PI of the Bangkok case study, gave a 2-hour lecture entitled “Low-income housing development in Thailand: Lessons learnt from site-and-service to participatory slum upgrading programs”, at the Vietnamese-German University (VGU) in Ho […]

By Komson Teeraparbwong First Approach: Ban King-Kaew Roundtable Forum. “A Neighbourhood voice” Chairs were set in a circle, so that the “round-table forum” could be ready to receive our important guests. Many key persons who live in Wua-lai neighbourhood area came into the room and sat within the circle. Some were representing their area of […]

by Nathalie Dagmang Escolta vendors rely so heavily on neighborhood conditions that even the smallest incremental structural or demographic change can result in a chain of problems for their livelihoods and families. This is because of the unstable and unpredictable nature of the vendors’ small businesses and private lives – including their fluctuating income, the […]

by Non Arkaraprasertkul and Boonanan Natakun “What do you guys want from us, this time?” This rhetorical and dismissive question can easily be heard by new researchers trying to interview residents at the Nang Loeng neighborhood in the heart of the Old City of Bangkok. For decades, Nang Loeng has been at the center of […]

As a part of the Wua Lai project, Pijika Pumketkao and Ajarn Komsan Teeraparbwong share some images of inhabited spaces and Buddhist temples with their silver engraved wall constitute meaningful ‘places’ in this neighbourhood. The Sri Suphan temple The intricate silver engraving on the wall of the Muen San temple The house and workshop of […]

by Boonanan Natakun In the 2018 report from SEANNET, Bangkok team, we illustrated what has happened in Nang Loeng, through three case studies about the Old Bangkok Neighbourhood’s development towards creative tourism: the Buffalo Field Festival (งานเต้นทุ่งสนามควาย), a community-based performing arts festival, and the “Mysterious” Physical Improvement Project of Sala Chalerm Thani. These two events […]

by Huiying Ng The Southeast Asia NeighbourhoodNetwork (SEANNET) and Humanities across Borders (HaB) research groupsco-organised a full day of panels at the 2nd Africa-Asia Conference, held in Dar es Salaam from 20-22 September 2018. Program: https://icas.asia/files/Program_Abstracts_Africa_Asia.pdf Chairs Paul Rabé, SEANNET, International Institute for Asian Studies, the Netherlands Rita Padawangi, SEANNET, IIAS, the Netherlands/Singapore University of the Social […]

by Rita Padawangi In April 2019, SEANNET Peneleh collaborated with Urban Sketchers Surabaya in making Peneleh Sketchbook. Urban Sketchers is a non-profit organization dedicated to raising the artistic, storytelling and educational value of location drawing, promoting its practice and connecting people around the world who draw on location where they live and travel. Sketching in […]

Although Thingazar Chaung as a settlement has been in its current location since the time of Alaungpaya, the founder of Konbaung dynasty in the middle of the 18th century, little has been written about this neighbourhood. It remains on the periphery. When King Mindon founded Mandalay, the last Burmese dynastic capital, in 1857, Thingazar Chaung was […]

By Thomas Manuel The Chiang Mai leg of the Thailand workshop began with visits to the Chiang Mai House Museum where different traditional residential structures had been preserved for posterity and the Thailand Creative and Design Center (TCDC) which is a public learning space to foster design and creativity. At TCDC, the Director introduced the vision […]

by Erik Harms The streets of a city, when studied carefully, can unfurl like the pages of a history book. In Vietnam, the history of street names is particularly revealing, because the names themselves have changed with successive precolonial, colonial, post-colonial, American-sponsored, anti-communist, communist, and what might now be called “late socialist,” “post-reform era,” or, […]

by Tessa Maria Guazon Culture as potent driver of development frames the Escolta case study: myself, visual artists Alma Quinto, Nathalie Dagmang, and Cian Dayrit are interested in ways communities mobilise themselves to survive rapid changes happening in cities. We have three projects that mobilise creativity and conversation as central approaches to field work and research. […]

By Pijika Pumketkao-Lecourt In mid-December, with a map and a drawing board in hand, a group of Franco-Thai students walked through the calm shaded alleyways in Wua Lai neighbourhood. As part of the Spatial Investigation Workshop, they had been asked to conduct a survey on the living space of Wua Lai, to make sketches of […]