From boats to bikes? Assembling contestations along the Chao Phraya river in Bangkok, Thailand

Abstract

Recently, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, real estate developers, and the national military government of the Kingdom of Thailand have rediscovered their interest in Bangkok’s Chao Phraya riverfront. In 2015, plans surfaced to build a bike lane next to the river to create public space and to enhance the flood protection of the delta capital. Quickly, however, environmental and social activists mobilized against the plan’s negative ecological and social impacts. In this paper, I draw on assemblage theory to focus on the practices of two environmental NGOs. I discuss their use of social media, socio-material artifacts, and subversive events to create space for alternative planning proposals. The particular theoretical assemblage perspective is chosen to attend to the materiality and partial agency of non-human actants, such as the river itself and the objects used by the NGOs to mount resistance.Keywords: river; waterfront; assemblage; smooth space; urban planning; Bangkok