Nomadism of public space dwellers in Metro Manila: On their home, mobility, and survival

Abstract The paper focuses on the contemporary urban nomadism of public space dwelling in a developing country. In particular, the paper considers the case of public space dwelling in Metro Manila which reportedly has the largest public space dweller population among the world’s metropolises. It examines their shift from sedentary living, and how they navigate the terrain of conflicts and compromises that come with the localized articulation of various modes of economic production. To probe into their characteristics, the paper employs a framework based on the heterogeneity of anthropolocal functions—i.e. how people use local spaces for economic production and human regeneration. The paper reveals that the circumstances underlying the shift to nomadic living are: unresolved land problems in the provinces that go back to the feudal era, vulnerability of local communities against natural disasters due to development unevenness between Metro Manila and the provinces, and deteriorating work conditions under a globalizing economy. The paper further identifies the living stereotype of public space dwellers as forager stereotype in which the individual band-members move relative to the mobile base camp. Lastly, the paper points out that the lives of public space dwellers in the capitalist urban environment are unstable and precarious. As a survival strategy, public space dwellers employ—albeit often unconsciously—subsistence from their urban habitat, living in small and non-hierarchical units, building social relationships that transcend consanguineous relationships, sharing of limited resource, reciprocity, and mutual aid within and outside the band, division of labour, and giving and receiving care.


PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT
The philosopher Bauman argued that we-the settled majority-is being ruled by a nomadic elite. This is convincing as we look at CEOs and senior managers regularly crisscrossing borders as they oversee their business operations and attend business forums around the world. However, contemporary nomadism is not found only among the elites but also across the economic spectrum. In this paper, we will focus on the urban nomads or public space dwellers in a developing country. We will look at how they understand what home is. We will understand that they have a home and therefore are not homeless. We will further see how they navigate and survive the city.

Introduction
The advance of economic globalization is breeding new living patterns that is leaving sedentary living behind. Bauman (2000, p. 13) argues that we are seeing "the revenge of nomadism over the principle of territoriality and settlement." Goods and investments have increasingly crossed borders, and that capital accumulation has become geographically extensive. He argues that "the settled majority is ruled by the nomadic and exterritorial elite" (Bauman, 2000, p. 13). Take the case of pre-indicted Carlos Ghosn. Being the CEO of two global companies based in two different continents, he had been splitting his time between Japan, France, U.S., Brazil, China, and the Middle East (Ghosn, 2017). Not only the global elite can indulge a peripatetic life. Digital nomads have taken advantage of internet capabilities and work remotely. The spatial fluidity of work has permeated widely across the economic spectrum. For instance, in Nomadland (Brudler, 2017), middle-aged and older workers in the United States have uprooted themselves from their previous houses to live in their RVs or Recreation Vehicles as unstable and transient work becoming normal along with real estate becoming unaffordable.
Here, the paper focuses on the urban nomadism in a developing country by considering the case of public space dwellers in Metro Manila-reportedly having the largest public space dweller population among the world's metropolises, and on how they navigate the terrain of conflicts and compromises that come with the localized articulation of various modes of economic production. This paper employs a framework that analyse the heterogeneity of anthropolocal functions (J. X. Lambino, 2016)-i.e., how people use local spaces for economic production and human regeneration. Under this framework, four pronounced living stereotypes have been pointed out: forager stereotype, agriculturer stereotype, industrial worker stereotype, and migrant worker stereotype ( Figure 1). 1 To be noted is that while a stereotype is dominant in a particular era, its dominance does not preclude other stereotypes from co-existing.
Using this framework, the paper has three main objectives. One: To analyse the shift to nomadic living of those previously living a sedentary life, and to reveal the historico-structural circumstances that underlie it. Two: To identify the living stereotype of public space dwellers by examining their home and locality, and the anthropolocal characteristics of their human regeneration and economic production through the lenses of mobility and subsistence. Three: To identify their characteristics in order to survive and endure the harshness of living in the public spaces of the metropolis.

Description of the Fieldwork
The data for the paper is mainly sourced from a fieldwork 2 that was conducted between 31 October 2018, and 6 December 2018, in Quezon City, the Philippines ( Figure 2). 3 Quezon City is the largest component city of the country's capital region of Metro Manila both in terms of population and land area. In 2020, Quezon City accounts for 22% of region's population of 13 million (Philippine Statistics Authority, 2021b), and 28% of the region's land area of around 600 sq. km.
The fieldwork involved a questionnaire survey on public space dwellers, supplementary interviews, field observation, and GPS tracking of their mobility. The questionnaire survey and interview were conducted orally. Tagalog, being the lingua franca among the public space dwellers, was used as the medium of communication.
The questions of the questionnaire survey can be categorized into the following: locality, subsistence, band living, egalitarianism, interaction with other bands, common property, reciprocity, living insecurity, government regulation, and political participation. Supplementary interviews were undertaken to clarify answers as well as to probe into the answers provided. The questionnaire survey took around 15 minutes for each respondent.
The fieldwork chose the respondents and research participants through a combination of opportunity sampling, snowball sampling and voluntary sampling. 4 While it is ideal to conduct a probability sampling for the questionnaire survey to achieve a high degree of sample representativeness of the public space dweller population, this is not possible given the lack of detailed information on the target population such as their total number, age distribution, spatial distribution, etc.
Field observation was conducted recurrently during the period of the fieldwork. Attention was given to the behaviour and interaction of band-members. Furthermore, the fieldwork tracked the mobility of research participants from eight bands 5 by giving them GPS tracking devices. Table 1 shows a summarized profile of participating bands of public space dwellers. The fieldwork covered 26 bands consisting of around a total of 110 band-members. The table shows the number of members for each band, age range, and intra-band relationships.
Between 2012 and 2019, the country has an impressive economic growth rate of between 6% and 7%. Furthermore, it had continuously experienced current account surplus between 2003 and 2015 decreasing its net liabilities against other countries. For many economists such as Rosellon and Medalla (2017), the country's economic fundamentals are strong, and the economic outlook is bright and promising. However, these economists tend to downplay serious contradictions embedded in the country's socioeconomic structure. For instance, the poverty incidence in 2018 is recorded at 17% and subsistence incidence-i.e., the proportion of the population whose per capita income is lower than the minimum income to meet basic food needs-is 5% (Philippine Statistics Authority, 2020). Additionally, in 2017, 3% of all families have experienced hunger for the past three months (Philippine Statistics Authority, 2018b).
Economic divide in the country is blatant at various levels. Flying into Metro Manila at night-time, one notices towering buildings glittering its skyline. Once one gets out of the airport, one can easily notice this blatant economic divide. The streets leading out of the airport have slums jutting out into the sidewalks, and those sidewalks serving as sleeping quarters of some families. While some of the rich would hop from one skyscraper to another using helicopters to avoid traffic congestion as well as being targets of street crime, the poorest of the poor would scrounge for food under the shadows of those skyscrapers. It is estimated that 43% of the urban population in the country live in slums (World Bank, 2021). It is further estimated that 4.5 million or 4% of the country's population are public space dwellers, and three million of them live in Metro Manila accounting to 22% of the metropolis's population (Chandran, 2018). Humanitarian organizations have indicated that Metro Manila might have the largest public space dweller population among the world's metropolises (Chandran, 2018).
Land dispossession in the Philippines has a history as old as the country's formation when all land was integrated into the estate of the Spanish king as crown lands (Corpuz, 1992). While the paper does not intend to focus on the historical origins of land dispossession in the country, the contemporary phenomenon of extra-legal occupation of land comes in part from the unaffordability of real estate due to concentration of country's income and wealth divide in Metro Manila (J. X. P. Lambino, 2010). Figure 3 shows that residential real estate price index for the whole country continues to increase to 139 in 2020 with the baseline of 100 in the first quarter of 2014. Meanwhile, the index increased in Metro Manila to 154 which is considerably higher than the country's average.
As incomes continue to concentrate to the wealthy in Metro Manila, their increasing disposable income has attracted the inflow of low-wage workers in the metropolis's service industry because the high-income lifestyle in Metro Manila requires the labour of low-income workers such as waiters, masseuse, maids, cooks, gardeners, and others (J. X. P. Lambino, 2010). Under this  setup, low wage workers are confronted with unaffordable housing in the legal market and are pushed to live in slums and on the streets, i.e., outside state-sanctioned living spaces.

Shift to normadic living
Based on the interviews, 16 of the respondents made a shift from sedentary living to nomadic living as public space dwellers, and some of them elaborated on the circumstances that drove them from sedentary living to nomadic living. Nine of the 16 respondents were originally from the provinces. Table 2 lists their origins and circumstances. Five of the respondents did not provide an answer. The remaining five answered that they have been living on public spaces as long as they remember, implying a possibility of intergenerational nomadic living.
What can be gathered from their answers is that their shift to nomadic living-i.e., their displacement from sedentary living-has been shaped by the larger historico-structural circumstances faced by the Philippine society.
For instance, respondent no. 3 was originally a farm worker in Laguna, a province adjacent to and to the south of Metro Manila. He was evicted from his work in the fields, and afterwards he drifted to Metro Manila. Beginning in the latter part of 1980s, as the government pursued exportled industrialization, Laguna along with other provinces in the Calabarzon Region experienced rapid industrialisation (J. X. P. Lambino, 2010). Industrial production sites were established to accommodate the entry of foreign capital. Agricultural plantations were converted into industrial production sites, which was facilitated in part by Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of 1988 (J. X. P. Lambino, 2010). The intention of the law was the distribution of land to tenant farmers and resolve the long-standing land problem in the country. However, many landlords sidestepped the law by converting their landholdings into non-agricultural land and making them exempt from land distribution. As manufacturing work grew and spill-over effects from the industrial production sites expanded the local economy, the demand for accommodations increased. This further escalated the conversion of agricultural land, this time, into residential plots and often into gated villages. As land conversion advanced, tenant workers and farm workers were evicted from the land they till, and like respondent no. 3, they drifted to the cities. After being evicted from the land he tilled, respondent no. 3 found himself living and working in Quezon City. He did not have much skill to offer in the metropolis. Fortunately, he stumbled into an available job of dishwashing. But his job was far from being a panacea. He found himself exhausted for continually working long hours without adequate sleep. He quitted his job, then he drifted to a life on the streets.
On the other hand, before ending up living on public spaces, respondent no. 1 had a highly paying job in a contact centre as a customer support. Most contact centres in the Philippines provide information services in English to customers located in distant time zones of United States and United Kingdom 6 (J. X. P. Lambino, 2012, pp. 92-101). Due to the time zone differences, night shift work is common and necessary. While salaries are high, their realities of work are harsh, often leading to adverse health issues. According to a publication of International Labour Organization, many workers in this sector in the Philippines suffered fatigue and insomnia (Amante, 2010). Respondent no. 1 was not different from other workers in contact centres. He suffered from fatigue and stress. Because of this, he quitted his job. Eventually, he found more solace in living in public spaces.
The experience of respondent nos. 1 and 3 showed the harshness of work in Metro Manila. With an unemployment rate of 5% in 2018 or an unemployment in the millions in the country (Philippine Statistics Authority, 2018a), low-skilled jobs are often considered expendable and easily replaceable. Work conditions are harsh, and workers in low-skilled jobs are expected to bear harsh On the other hand, respondent nos. 2 and 8 are eco-refugees. Typhoon Haiyan ravaged their hometowns in the islands of Samar and Leyte in 2013. Socioeconomic inequalities such as in terms of education, employment and health care and socio-political exclusion aggravate vulnerability against natural disasters (Oxfam, 2013). Their displacement to Metro Manila betrays the geographical unevenness of disaster vulnerability and shows the fragility and weakness of disaster resilience of local communities and local governments in the provinces. For instance, there is a wide divide in the revenue capacity among local government units. In 2020, the total revenue of Quezon City-a component city of Metro Manila and the site of fieldwork-is 24 billion pesos as against that of Tacloban City's-a provincial city hit by the typhoon-1.6 billion pesos (Commission on Audit, 2020a, 2020b). Furthermore, the country's economy is centred in Metro Manila. In 2020, Metro Manila accounts for 32% of the country's GDP while only accounting 12% of the population (2021a; Philippine Statistics Authority, 2021b). In 2014, 66% of top 1000 corporations based on revenue have their headquarters in Metro Manila (Securities and Exchange Commission, n.d..). The headquarters own their economic production in the outlying regions, as well as control the income generated there (J. X. P. Lambino, 2010). The weakness of local economies is that not only because economic production such as in terms of Gross Regional Product is centred in Metro Manila, but more so because of the income flow into Metro Manila due to the concentration of corporate headquarters (J. X. P. Lambino, 2010;Okada, 1994;Shima, 1951). 7 While public space dwellers might have reasons specific to the individual on shifting from sedentary living, their behaviour had been shaped by a reality greater than themselves. Based on the fieldwork, these are: unresolved land problems in the provinces that go back to the feudal era, vulnerable local communities against natural disasters due to development unevenness between Metro Manila and the provinces, and unstable work and deteriorating work conditions under a globalizing economy.

Homelessness and home
Researchers have pointed out that the home signifies a physical place but also represents subjective dimensions of being a source of identity and culture (Altman & Gauvain, 1981), of an idealization of the past, and of the idealized goals for the future (Moore, 2000(Moore, , 2007. Many would deem public space dwellers as homeless. This is not surprising since home is generally understood as the "fixed residence of a family or household" (Simpson & Weiner, 1989). The homeless label attributed to public space dwellers underlines the absence of legal residence and highlights the precariousness of their living conditions. However, the label tends to overlook the possibility that they consider themselves having a home as a "place of one's dwelling or nurturing" 8 (Simpson & Weiner, 1989). For instance, a main character in Nomadland insisted that the RV-dwellers "are 'houseless,'" and for her, "'[h]omeless' is other people" (Brudler, 2017, Chapter 10). While they have no legal rights to their dwelling, public space dwellers have used the public space as their homes for "dwelling or nurturing." Human activity produces places (Dirlik, 1998) out of the abstractness of spaces. Furthermore, different aspects of human activity ascribe corresponding meanings to places. The act of human regeneration by public space dwellers through their rest and procreation (see footnote 1) ascribes the meaning of home to a public space.
In the questionnaire survey, public space dwellers were asked about their home. 9 Not one answered none. Sixteen out of the 26 respondents named a public road, five named the name of a locale or neighbourhood, five named a landmark, and three named a particular spot such as a place on a sidewalk in front of a store, a spot under a particular bridge, and a corner under a particular flyover (Table 3). What is observable from their answers is that the place that they understand as home is often a continuum in the public space such as a street name or an area radiating from a landmark. Their answers of a continuum as opposed to a spot reveals the fluidity of their dwelling location brought by repeated transfers. On the other hand, three bands named a particular spot as their home. This reveals a sense of permanence and security with regards to their home. These spots either are not conspicuous from the eyes of discontented commuters or are habited for a long time such that their presence has blended with and has become an accepted part of the surroundings.
Public space dwellers recognize that they have a home; and for them, their home is a place in the public space regardless of whether the state or the society in general accords them rights to the place. Human regeneration for the individual and for the group takes place in the public space when existing impediments to secure land property rights are unsettled such as unresolved land problem, and unstable and harsh work. However, the issue of public space dwelling extends beyond the language of land rights and is even situated within the dichotomy between the worldview of nomadic living and that of sedentary living. The nomadic worldview assumes that it is the people are distributed to the land (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). In contrast to this, the worldview of sedentary living assumes that the land is instead the one to be allocated to the people. The allocation of land involves the creation and enforcement of land rights. In turn, the enforcement requires a hierarchy of authority whether formal or informal. In the slums, the neighbourhood bosses serve as the extra-legal authority. Even there, spaces are allocated wherein buying and renting are necessary to acquire rights of use. Slum dwelling is even estimated to be costlier than formal and legal dwelling (Friedman et al., 1987). In addition to this, public space dwellers' preference towards non-hierarchical relationships (see the section "Surviving Urban Capitalism") explains their presence on public spaces rather in the slums.

Mobility in the metropolis
The lives of public space dwellers are embedded in their movement. During the fieldwork, the movement of a member 10 from each of the selected eight bands was tracked using a GPS tracker for a period of between six and nine days. Figure 4 shows their movements as tracked by the GPS tracker, while table 4 shows a summary of their movements. All move substantially covering an average of between 5 km and 17 km a day. While their lives are deeply intertwined with their movement, all representatives except for the representative of band no. 1 spent some days in which their movement is limited in and around their homes-which can be called as their base camps-for rest, socialization, and nurturing their offspring. During these days, they move between 100 meters and 1 km within a circle with a radius of around 30 meters to 250 meters. Their base camp is the site where human regeneration takes place; the individuals renew their lifeforce, and the bands nurture their young and socialize with others. Meanwhile, rest and recovery for band no. 1with only one member-happens in the confines of his home in between his work of scavenging. There are bands that answered two places, so the total is more than 26. On days that they work such as to scavenge for food and scraps, their movement happens on public roads and public parks and bounded within an area between 0.23 sq. km to 6.6 sq. km. They move on well-established paths on public roads and public parks. Their familiarity with the route makes them efficient where to look and what to look for at each site. While they are nomadic, their mobility is limited to what can be called as their living habitat.
Furthermore, division of labour between the sexes can be observed as expressed in their mobility. In four bands, the male adults venture out far from his base camp and the female adults stay in or near the base camp. While the male adults scavenge for resource or walk to peddle goods, the female adults take care of the children and sometimes work near the base camp by selling scavenged resource to nearby junk shop, by working as a jeepney barker, or by begging from passers-by. There are also cases in which the whole band, often composed of a nuclear family, would go, and scavenge while pushing their pushcarts carrying their offspring and their collected scraps.
Public space dwellers move their homes according to the social circumstances in the urban environment. 11 Based on the questionnaire survey, 18 out of the 26 groups or 69% have experienced being driven away from their homes. The motives are varied. The central government has often cleared the streets of public space dwellers whenever dignitaries from overseas visit or whenever international events are held. For instance, it was reported that the government rounded up and detained public space dwellers in 2015 to clear the streets for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting to be attended by heads of states of member-countries such as Barack Obama of the United States and Xi Jinping of China (Whaley, 2015). Local governments have routinely driven them to clear sidewalks and streets to improve traffic flow for pedestrians and automobiles. Shops through their security personnel drive them when their presence becomes a hindrance to their business operations. While their movement is hugely affected by the sociopolitical circumstances, they are not active in participating in electoral politics compared to the general populace, nor active in joining public protests. Only 51% of those surveyed have voted in an election. Furthermore, only 20% have ever joined public protests.

Subsistence and foraging in the urban habitat
Only 23% source their food and clothing mainly from the market. Nevertheless, the subsistence of public space dwellers is dependent on the urban economy. Most of them-69% of the public space dwellers-source their food and clothing mainly from scavenging, i.e., foraging through the waste of residences and businesses. Another 38% source their food and clothing from begging. They would sit on sidewalks or pedestrian overpasses usually with an empty tin can in front of them as they wait for pedestrians to give them alms. The children would often venture on the streets and highways and knock on the car windows to ask for alms. Many pedestrians and drivers would not be willing to give money but instead give food and clothing to public space dwellers because of reported cases in which gangs coerce them to beg money.
Similar to hunter-gatherers, 12 public space dwellers source their basic needs from their habitat through foraging and sometimes through gifts. The respondents showed they have limited dependence on the market for their basic needs. Their lives are embedded in the metabolism of their urban habitat. Foraging becomes possible due to the overabundance of goods in the metropolis. Metro Manila even though located in a developing country is flooded with an overabundance of goods that is produced in the global economy.
While there is an overabundance of goods in Metro Manila, the poor often do not have the purchasing power to procure their basic needs from the market. It is the wealthy who have the disposable income to purchase goods even more than their needs. Accordingly, consumption 13 is concentrated in the metropolis (J. X. P. Lambino, 2010), and this results in high volume of waste. Food, clothing, and consumer goods are easily disposed as waste. The waste trickles down as useful resources for those below in the income hierarchy. Eventually, this waste is disposed of as refuse. The refuse is then collected by public space dwellers to be used for subsistence. Extreme wealth and poverty exist side by side and are both reproduced in the metropolis.
All 26 bands have an income source. In contrast to self-sufficient hunter-gatherers, public space dwellers cannot sustain their lives completely separated from the monetary economy. On the other hand, only three respondents out of the 26 have an income that is higher than the statutory daily minimum wage of 500 to 537 pesos for non-agricultural sector in Metro Manila during the time of the questionnaire survey. This only shows that public space dwellers are the poorest members of Metro Manila.
Nevertheless, being embedded in the metabolism of their urban habitat, public space dwellers play an important role in the material flow in the metropolis, and in the conventional economy in terms of resource circulation. Based on the fieldwork, 83% of income source comes from scavenging. Those scavenging would go around dump sites to hunt for sellable resource such as metal scraps, bottles, and plastics. Those collected would then be sold to their neighbourhood junkshops involved in resource recycling. The resource is then sold to a wholesaler, and then to raw material producers. Finally, the resource is sold to producer of goods (refer to JICA, 2008). Accordingly, public space dwellers serve as the entry points to the resource circulation, that supports the metabolism of the urban environment.
Public space dwellers acquire their basic material needs of food and clothing, and earn money mainly through foraging and begging. In other words, economic production for them happens in a site that extends out of their base camp. Furthermore, the previous section has shown that they implement two types of mobility: the member moves relative to the location of their base camp, and their base camp moves in their urban environment. Accordingly, the living stereotype of public space dwellers is classified as forager stereotype.

Surviving urban capitalism
The previous section has shown that public space dwellers live according to the forager stereotype. To probe deeper into their characteristics, this section uses the characteristics of hunter-gatherers-an archetype of the forager stereotype-as an analytical platform. According to Lee and Daly (1999), hunter-gatherers generally have the following characteristics. The basic unit of their social organization is the band, a group of 15 to 50 people related by kinship. Bands also share the following features: relatively egalitarian, mobile, pattern of concentration and dispersion, and common property regime. Furthermore, sharing is a fundamental rule that regulates their relationship among themselves. As relatively egalitarian societies, leadership is less formal and contingent to popular opinion within the band. Band leaders tend to lead by example and not by command. People in band societies are highly mobile and move their settlements several times a year. They also use mobility to avoid conflicts: members leave a band with an unpopular leader; and a band leaves a place to avoid conflict with other bands. Bands of hunter-gatherers tend to disperse into smaller groups during a part of the year and concentrate into larger groups in another part of the year. They also exhibit a common property regime in which mobile property is held by individuals and land is held by a kinship-based collective. Rules on reciprocal access to land can also be observed.
The band size of public space dwellers ranges from one to around ten members (Table 1). Five bands or 19% of the total are single member ones. When asked their reason for not joining or forming a band, they expressed trust issues such as possible incidence of theft, and that being a member of band exposes them to unwanted peer pressure from others. They prefer autonomy from others and are unused to the norms of communal living observed generally in public space dwelling. Meanwhile, the small size of one to around ten members indicates the areal limits of base camps in an urban environment where they are set up on narrow spaces of pedestrian roads, or under bridges or flyovers, as well as the severity of the urban environment to sustain a large band. There are also bands (nos. 17, 18, and 21) in which the number of members is fluid and fluctuates. The fluidity of membership indicates that some relationships within the band remain vague as its composition is maintained and sustained by the sharing of resources and giving and receiving care among the members.
Among the 21 bands with more than one member, eight bands are nuclear families, one band is a non-consanguineous family, three bands are composed of consanguineous members, three bands are composed of friends, and six bands are composed of composite membership of friends and relatives (refer to Table 1). In other words, only 38% of the bands are nuclear families, and only 52% are composed solely of blood relatives. Furthermore, there are bands (nos. 11 and 24) in which members considered themselves relatives but are actually non-consanguineous. For instance, band no. 11 is composed of a 55-year-old woman and 22-year-old son who have developed a familial relationship as a mother and a son and yet are not biologically related. The parent-offspring relationship was an outcome of the care given and received as a mother and as an offspring.
In other words, around one-half has a component of non-consanguineous relationships. Aside from the bands operating in small size, the bands build relationships that transcend consanguineous relations to survive the harshness of the urban environment. Additionally, almost all have a friendly and convivial social interaction with other bands.
During the fieldwork, public space dwellers have exhibited traits that affirm common property. Twenty out of 26 bands believe in sharing waste dumps from which they procure most of their basic needs rather than act to exclude other bands. Furthermore, sharing is a characteristic that can be observed among public space dwellers. They acquire their needs from their urban habitat or from gifts of passers-by. They even share the limited food they have within the band to overcome hunger. As mentioned earlier, the exchange of care forms relationships within the group. They share not in spite of but because of resource scarcity. Regarding reciprocity, 24 out of the 26 bands believe there is an obligation to reciprocate. They believe that if they are helped by others, they have the obligation to return the favour.
Meanwhile, out of the 21 bands composed of more than one member, 17 bands or 81% of the respondent size do not consider their band to have a leader. Only four bands or 19% have a leader. Furthermore, for 20 bands or 95%, actions are undertaken through discussion and consensus. For four bands or 19%, members show their desired course of action through example. Only two bands or 10% have command that determines their course of action. Based on this result, public space dwellers in general do not favour hierarchical relationships. Instead, they favour a more or less egalitarian relationships.
The lives of public space dwellers in the capitalist urban environment are unstable and very precarious. Hunger and eviction are always a possibility. However, through subsistence, living in small units, non-hierarchical relationships, building social relationships that transcend consanguineous relationships, sharing of limited food and other resource, reciprocity and mutual aid within and outside the band, division of labour, and giving and receiving care, public space dwellers survive and endure the harshness of a capitalist urban environment.

Conclusion
This paper focused on a type of people crisscrossing neighbourhoods at the same time mainly living on open spaces in a metropolis, viz. public space dwellers of Metro Manila. To probe into their characteristics, the paper employed the framework of living stereotypes according to anthropolocal functions-i.e., how humanity uses local spaces for economic production and human regeneration. The four pronounced living stereotypes are forager stereotype, agriculturer stereotype, industrial worker stereotype, and migrant worker stereotype.
The paper revealed that the circumstances underlying the shift to nomadic living are unresolved land problems in the provinces that go back to the feudal era, vulnerability of local communities against natural disasters due to development unevenness between Metro Manila and the provinces, and unstable and deteriorating work conditions under a globalizing economy. The paper further identified the living stereotype of public space dwellers as forager stereotype in which the individual bandmembers move relative to the mobile base camp. Furthermore, human regeneration-i.e., individual rest and recovery, and procreation and nurturing of the young-happens in and around their base camp, and economic production mainly through scavenging is carried out in an area that extends out of their base camp. Lastly, the paper points out that the lives of public space dwellers in the capitalist urban environment are unstable and precarious. As a survival strategy, public space dwellers employ-albeit often unconsciously-subsistence from their urban habitat, living in small units, non-hierarchical relationships, building social relationships that transcend consanguineous relationships, sharing of limited food and other resource, reciprocity and mutual aid within and outside the band, division of labour, and giving and receiving care, in order to endure and live through the harshness of a capitalist urban environment.
While urban land displacement can be situated within the larger socioeconomic processes of capitalist production of the urban space, the issue of land displacement extends beyond the cities since the requirements of capitalist production occupy rural spaces as well as Okada (2005) correctly points out. For instance, the construction of industrial sites has often involved the conversion of agricultural land leading to the expulsion of tenants and farmworkers. The construction of dams has often involved the resettlement of whole villages and the displacement of nomadic indigenous peoples from their ancestral domains. It is becoming clearer that unbridled capitalist production of space is inflicting serious harm on the living spaces of peoples whether they are in the cities or in the rural areas.
Lastly, the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has a profound effect on the society.
A follow-up study is needed to assess the its impact to the public space dwellers.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Citation information
Cite this article as: Nomadism of public space dwellers in Metro Manila: On their home, mobility, and survival, John XXV Paragas Lambino, Cogent Social Sciences (2023), 9: 2194566.

Notes
1. According to the framework (J. X. Lambino, 2016), the living stereotypes were drawn from the locality of the vital aspects of human existence. Human existence requires human regeneration and the economic production that sustains it. Human regeneration happens at the very least at the individual level through rest and recovery, and at the species level through human procreation and nurturing of the young. On the other hand, economic production is the activity of acquiring the means to satisfy material and psychological needs for human regeneration.
Human regeneration-life's regeneration for an individual and in human species-mostly happens in the same locality. The mobile or semi-mobile base camp serves this function for huntergatherers-an archetype of the forager stereotype; the village serves this function for peasants-an archetype of the agriculturer stereotype; and the residential neighbourhood for factory workers-an archetype of the industrial worker stereotype. On the other hand, overseas migrant workers-an archetype of migrant worker stereotype-leave their families in their home countries to work overseas. This results to a geographical fragmentation between the sites for individual regeneration and for species reproduction. Accordingly, this leads the overseas migrant worker to commute periodically between the two countries.
Meanwhile, human existence also requires a material exchange with the natural environment. For hunter-gatherers, economic production is the means to acquire material needs through fishing, hunting, and gathering wild plant foods in an area that extends out of their base camp. On the other hand, for peasants, the site of economic production is the village which is the same site for human regeneration. Inside the village, farmlands and settlements are extensions of each other.
As the market develops and increasingly mediates the psychological and material needs for human existence, economic production becomes increasingly the process of acquiring money that serves as the medium of exchange in the market. The factory worker receives a wage for his work at the factory, which is the site for economic production, as he commutes there from his residential community. Similarly, the overseas migrant worker in the host country commutes between his residential neighbourhood and workplace. 2. Ethical approval was not required for the conduct of the survey in Metro Manila, the Philippines. The participation to the questionnaire surveys and interviews was completely voluntary. Furthermore, respondents and interviewees had the right to withdraw at any time during the conduct of the surveys or interviews. Anonymity of the respondents and interviewees has been protected by removing identifiable personal information. 3. While the field site is mainly conducted in Quezon City, there are cases in which public space dwellers roam beyond the city boundaries. Furthermore, the fieldwork was conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, which could have affected the characteristics of urban nomadism. For instance, it has been shown in a study (da Silva Lopes et al., 2021) on tourist risk perceptions on profound effect on the society by the outbreak. 4. Opportunity sampling is a method in which the survey taker selects anyone available who is willing to participate in the study. On the other hand, snowball sampling is a method in which existing participants in the study introduce other potential participants. Lastly, voluntary sampling in this paper refers to the method in which the participant volunteers to become a sample of the study. These methods are appropriate in the study considering the uncertainty and the fluidity of the target population and the ethical importance of willingness to participate. 5. It is ideal to track the GPS of all the 26 bands. The selection of bands is based on their willingness to carry the GPS-tracking device as well as on constraints on time and funding. 6. Those working for contact centres in the Philippines are generally required to have solid English language ability. 7. In a capitalist economy, regional concentration and external expansion of capital happen at the same time. While the means of production is dispersed such as through the construction of factories and mines in the peripheries, the income that come from the dispersal of production to the peripheries concentrates in cities where corporate headquarters are located. For instance, while the economic production for gold mining often happens in the hinterlands, the bulk of the income generated from the mining activities flow to the company headquarters located in the cities. 8. The complete definition is "place of one's dwelling or nurturing, with the conditions, circumstances, and feelings which naturally and properly attach to it, and are associated with it.". 9. It is to be noted that Tagalog was used as the language for the field work, and the paper needs to discuss the translation of "home" that was used.
While the concept of house as a particular structure that marks the private space from the common space corresponds to the Tagalog word bahay, "home" does not have a corresponding and equivalent Tagalog translation. Nevertheless, there are two terms in Tagalog that are mainly used to refer to home: tirahan and tahanan. Both words are an amalgamation of the root word and the suffixan that converts the root word into a place. Tira means to stay. On the other hand, tahan means to calm down. While tirahan and tahanan both refer to dwelling, the words have different nuances. Tirahan signifies as the place to stay in, while tahanan signifies as the place to calm down. The fieldwork used tirahan or the physical dwelling because the paper is interested in locating the site of human regeneration for public space dwellers. 10. The study did not track all the members of the band due to constraints in time and research funding. Since it is possible that there are differences between the movement of different members of the band, a follow-up study is necessary to elaborate on this. 11. Meanwhile, hunter gatherers move their camps depending on environmental circumstances such as seasonal climate and availability of resource such as water and food. 12. For subsistence, hunter-gatherers forage from their natural environment-such as hunting wild animals and gathering wild plant foods-without the domestication of plants and animals (Lee & Daly, 1999). They fish from rivers, hunt wild animals, and gather wild plant foods in the prairies and forest. Unlike peasants, they do not cultivate the natural environment to source their material needs such as through the domestication of wild plants and animals. They source their food and energy needs from and return their wastes directly to their natural environment. Their lives are mostly embedded in the metabolism of the natural environment in which they are part of its material flow. 13. The problem of surplus capital absorption (Harvey, 2011) has led to a quantitative expansion of production, continuous production of new fashionable trends, and the development of new products (J. X. P. Lambino, 2011, pp. 11-13). To maintain the production process, the output needs to be transformed into effective demand; commodity production requires the production of consumer desires and purchasing needs (Galbraith, 1958(Galbraith, / 1999, especially in those with high disposable income. Hence, it is inevitable for the capitalist mode of production to be accompanied by conspicuous consumption and conspicuous waste (Veblen, 1899(Veblen, /1998. A throwaway culture and wasteful consumption in one way maintain the continuous churning of the economy.