Paper short abstract:

The paper deals with social policies for urban poverty alleviation in the Philippines, and discusses the art of governing slum community. It particularly aims to discuss the characteristic of power, subjectivity, and community mobilized in the process of implementing such policies.

Paper long abstract:

The policies in this study can be analyzed in a broader context under the "enablement" approach and activation of community, which have been mainstream concepts in dealing with poverty alleviation since the democratization and decentralization of the government of the Philippines in the 1990s. Specifically, the study focuses on three cases; namely, the Community Mortgage Program (CMP) as a land reform program for the urban squatters; the Conditional Cash Transfer as an income assistance program; and the cash for work project. Each case clearly indicates how the programs work to govern poverty through social inclusion of the slum residents, and such inclusion has been made possible through the activation and mobilization of various actors such as residential associations, community, local politicians, and NGOs. The social inclusion observed in the case, however, is inevitably accompanied by the production of "un-governed people" at the margin or outside of the space of inclusion. As suggested in the data in this study, these "un-governed people" not only includes those who are simply excluded from, or who resist against, a regime of inclusion, but also those who desire to be governed differently, or who appropriate a regime of government and practice instead a self-government from below. The paper examines various modes of negotiation between inclusion and non-inclusion, or the "governed"and "un-governed", by focusing on the microscopic interaction among the stakeholders of the programs. Through such discussion, it will identify the significance of the emerging anthropology of social policy and government of urban poverty.