Events

This workshop aims to explore the various dimensions of land reclamation projects in Southeast Asia in relation to speculative climate urbanism, with a particular focus on inequality.

In recent years, many cities have started pivoting to carbon management and investments in climate-resilient infrastructures to deal with the urgency of climate emergencies. At the same time, the United Nations have also started prioritising climate financing, which benefits from the more quantifiable nature of carbon management and investments. The shift from the three sustainability pillars (social, economy, environment) as guiding principles, to these more quantifiable measures has however left climate urbanism prone to be captured by neoliberal planning (Long & Rice, 2019). Neoliberal tendencies to prioritise growth, coupled with quantifiable climate-proofing measures and climate financing, have paved the path for more speculative urbanisms, where the process of urbanization is mostly driven by real estate capital flows (Goldman, 2011). At the intersection of climate and speculative urbanisms lie coastal land reclamation – at once a legitimate method of climate adaptation while at the same time a lucrative land-banking exercise for real estate accumulation. Existing inequalities are further deepened as interventions favour the securitization of the privileged, at the expense of the marginalised (Garcia-Lamarca et al., 2021). Specifically, this workshop focuses on the following questions:

• How and what reclamation projects are being carried out in the region? At what scale are they happening? Who and what are the drivers behind reclaiming land and advancing societies seaward? Is there a limit to land reclamation?
• How are these projects mapped onto sustainability frameworks and concepts such as green growth and resilience? What is sustainable or resilient about these projects, and who benefits the most from these constructs? To what extent is future risk, whether climate change or disasters, being invoked in reclaiming land?
• How do people identify with reclaimed land? What are the social, economic, and cultural implications of these projects? Who gets to have access to its purported benefits and who are excluded from it? Are issues of inequality, inequity, and injustice amplified or attenuated by land reclamation and how are these manifested?
• What kinds of urban futures are projected in these visions, and to what extent are the local contexts taken into consideration?

REGISTRATION

Registration is closed, and instructions on how to participate in this hybrid workshop have been sent out to registered attendees. Please write to valerie.yeo@nus.edu.sg if you would like to attend the event.

WORKSHOP CONVENORS

Dr Nurul Azreen Azlan | Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
Dr Ven Paolo B. Valenzuela | Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore