Risk, Resilience and Responsibilisation Gendered Participation and Empowerment in Informal Settlements of Metro Cebu, the Philippines

In Metro Cebu, calls for creating a more ‘sustainable’ and ‘resilient’ city are also placing urban poor communities in an increasingly precarious position, with those living in areas classed as ‘danger zones’ simultaneously facing intensified pressures of displacement in the name of risk management. Amidst this context of multiple and overlapping forms of risk and insecurity, community organising among informal settlers has become a critical mechanism for building local capacities and resisting different socio-political and environmental threats. Largely mobilised and driven by women, these grassroots entities, often in the shape of homeowner associations, are fundamental to collective contestations of policies and practices that adversely or unfairly affect the urban poor of Cebu, while also serving as strategic sites for advancing claims on public resources and local risk management activities.