1.2 THE LOCALITY OF INDIA

Setting the Context

Preparing for the Week

Concept #1: Space and Place

Concept #2: Built Environment

Concept #4: Neighborhood

Guidlines for Neighborhood Project

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THE CONTEXT

Having examined the question ‘What is India?’ from a personal standpoint last week, we will now address it from yet another intimate perspective: the local . In other words, we will now try to make sense of India as a lived space--specifically, our lived space, our neighborhood, our locality, where you will be spending the next three years of your lives. How does 'India' look like when viewed from this location? What is our neighbourhood like in spatial, environmental, demographic, social, economic, administrative, cultural, and political terms? How has its 'character' changed over time? These are the questions that we will be concerned with this week. However, instead of depending only on assigned readings and lectures in engaging with them, you will undertake a small group project that will require you and your group members to do some research about the aforementioned aspects of the university's neighbourhood. This activity will help you obtain a 'concrete' sense of the natural, built, and social environment of our campus locality.

Context

PREPARING FOR THE WEEK

As will be the case throughout this course, preparation for week will include a mix of key concepts and readings. Additionally, for this week, you will also need to do some internet research and begin your fieldwork for the Neighborhood Observation Project (NOP) . What all this entails is explained below.

KEY CONCEPTS:

The key concepts around which this week's theme is structured all have to do with different ways of classifying and analyzing space. They are, namely: (a) space and place; (b) built environment; (c) rural, urban, and peri-urban; and (d) neighborhood. With the exception of 'built environment', the other terms are commonly used in the everyday English we speak. We also use a range of words in various Indian languages to mean and refer to the same things as these English words do. However, when we reflect on these words and treat them as concepts, they become interesting 'filters' through which we can make sense of the world around us and better understand it in terms of its spatial organization.

READINGS:

There are five short readings assigned for this week. Perhaps the most interesting of them is the Bangalore-based writer Lata Mani's short and lovely piece “A Street is Not a Road”, which, as the title suggests, tries to distinguish between these two terms that we use regularly for paths that use to navigate the city space. The other readings dwell on the rapid transformation that the area where our university is located is undergoing currently. Surashree Shome's study looks at the changes and their impact on lives of residents that a particular village in Anekal taluk, within whose administrative jurisdiction our campus also falls. Then there are two short pieces on the history of largest cluster of habitation, whose name we generally use to refer to the area where our university is located--the town of Sarjapura. The last reading is, again, a short opinion piece, on the road that connects the town to the city of Bangalore--Sarjapur Road.

INTERNET RESEARCH:

Do a keyword search with 'Sarjapur' and see what comes up in both general search results and image search results. What do the search results tell you you about Sarjapur?
Go to the Census of India website's search page and find the town profile data for Sarjapur and the similar profiles for villages surrounding our campus area. You can find the names of these villages from looking at Google Maps around Azim Premji University campus.

NEIGHBORHOOD OBSERVATION PROJECT:

As the name of this activity suggests, it requires you to observe, record, and analyze the locality in which our university campus is situated through a particular thematic lens. The project, which is to be undertaken in small groups, is meant to familiarize you with the surrounding areas, both experientially and in objective terms. Hence, research for the project requires you to explore the locality, preferably on foot, and do so such that you obtain both a 'feel' of the place, as well as an find out about its social, economic, cultural, and ecological make-up. Both these aspects of 'knowing' something--the experiential and the analytical--will need to feature in the presentation made and report filed by your group. This being the broad objective of the activity, here is a list of possible topics that could be assigned to different groups by your instructor: Agriculture and Land-use; Culture and Politics; Ecology and Environment; Economy and Commerce; Housing and Habitat; and, Local Institutions. The basic guidelines regarding how to approach the Neighborhood Observation Project is given below.

Preparation

KEY CONCEPT #1:
SPACE AND PLACE

At one level, space and place are notions with which we are intimately familiar. They are a basic fact of life--all beings occupy space/place. The words themselves are commonly uttered in everyday speech. Sample this: we visit different places over the course of our lives. We seek safe spaces to discuss controversial and emotionally exacting issues. Sometimes, we do not find ourselves in a good place. Other times, we yearn for some personal space. A large swathe of the world's population live in cramped spaces. Yet, there is no 'place' like home. In fact, we are so intuitively aware of 'space', 'place' and the difference between them that they do not usually warrant conscious reflection. We just know what they are and what they mean. But how about we take a pause and ask ourselves: what actually distinguishes these two terms, both of which are spatial concepts, from one another?

Here, we will address this question at a basic level and draw up simple, heuristic distinctions between space and place. The issue, however, is far more complex. And, if you are interested in delving into this complexity, you can read this article.

Writing in the 1970s, the eminent Chinese-American geographer, Yi-Fu Tuan evocatively captured in his book, Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience, the relation between the two notions. He wrote: "In experience, the meaning of space often merges with that of place. 'Space' is more abstract than 'place'. What begins as undifferentiated space becomes place as we get to know it better and endow it with value." (p.6) This framing immediately makes something clear at the outset: that 'space' and 'place' exist on a continuum. Under certain conditions space becomes place, and vice versa. Hence, though we are drawing a conceptual distinction here between space and place, in real-life experience, as Yi-Fu Tuan points out, the two often merge; each possesses, in variable degrees, the qualities that are conceptually identified with the other. It is hard to find 'pure' spaces and places actually existing.

However, insofar as we are drawing a conceptual distinction, we can say that space is unmarked, empty, without a specific location and address. It is abstract, in other words. Thus, your 'personal space' travels with you, for example. The 'safe space' that you as a woman wants to create with your allies to hang out and discuss gender politics--that could be on the terrace of your college one day or the corner of a park another day. In this sense, space, because it is abstract, is also transposable. It is not bound to any particular ground.

Place, on the other hand, is necessarily located somewhere. It is marked, addressed, and, mostly, named. A place is planted on the ground--on a specific ground, quite literally. And, as we know, naming places is an act fraught with cultural and political significance. Place, therefore, has history--histories, in fact; it is invested with memories and experience. Place, in this sense, is eminently social. The home you grew up in, the tea-shop where you and your neighborhood friends gathered--such emotionally full places these are. On the other hand, space is homogeneous and undifferentiated; all coordinates in a space are of equal value. But place is differentiated in terms of value, laden with different kinds of meaning.

In sum, then, if space is abstract, homogeneous, transposable, and always in the present, then place is concrete, differentiated, located, and hence, imbued with history, memory, and meaning. At the same time, it is important to bear in mind that our lived reality seldom presents occasions where this distinction is or can be neatly drawn. In 'real life', one person's space is another person's place. Spaces become places, and places can be evacuated of their meaning, history, and body, and turned into space. Until someone or others appropriate it and mark it as a place again. And so it goes on...

Concept 1

KEY CONCEPT #2:
BUILT ENVIRONMENT

'Built environment' is any spatial setting that is born out of human intervention--construction, transformation, rearrangement, maintenance, etc.--on the body of the earth with some purpose in mind. That purpose could be anything--from territory marking, shelter, and interior design to travel and movement, economic exploitation, and social domination. As a term, it was conceptualized to refer to spaces produced by the action of human labor and thought, as distinct from but related to 'natural environment,' i.e., spaces supposedly unworked or unmarked by human activity and, therefore, pre-social.

Built environments, therefore, are spatial outcomes of economic, social, political, and, cultural forces, as well as constitutive of them. In their spatial arrangement, they dictate containment and movement of bodies. As such, it reflects and mediates socioeconomic hierarchies, cultural values, forms of labor, and so on. For example, while it is increasingly the norm of new urban development all over the world, the geometrically regular, rectilinear and symmetrical layout of urban space--what we today identify as 'planned' urbanization--is culturally a product of western societies and their imagination of how urban spaces ought to be organized in a modern manner. In contrast, consider the winding lanes, the irregular spacing, the seeming 'disorderliness' of the built environment of our (old) cities; or, the difference between the colonial and the so-called 'native' quarters of the same city, like Bangalore, Calcutta, Bombay, Chennai, and so on. Just take a look at the maps below:

Chikpete, Bangalore Source: Scroll.in

Basavangudi, Bangalore Source: Scroll.in

The first image shows the spatial organization of Chikpete--one of Bangalore's oldest commercial-cum-residential districts, dating back to the 16th century, to the time of the city's founding by Kempegowda. The second image depicts the layout of Basavanagudi, a neighborhood that came up during the early decades of the 20th century, in the aftermath of the plague that swept through the city between 1896-99. The difference in the built environment of the two localities, even without the aid of other details, like topography, architectural style, proportion of residential and commercial buildings, sanitation infrastructure, land usage, foliage, etc., is plain to see, right? Chikpete is haphazardly laid out, without any discernible consistency in how the land is plotted in terms of shape and size. On the other hand, Basavanagudi, with its symmetrically arranged diagonal and perpendicular pathways, evenly spaced square and rectangular emplotment, belies an entirely different principle of urban planning, one that originated in the West. A product of European ideas of organizing (urban) space, it was brought to and implemented in India by European colonizers, keeping many ends in mind, one of which was public health. Hence, as Amos Rapoport, an architect and scholar of human space-making, puts it: "Any consideration of built environments must take into account not only the ‘hardware’ but also people, their activities, wants, needs, values, life-styles and other aspects of culture."

Concept 2

KEY CONCEPT #3:
RURAL, URBAN, PERI-URBAN

As terms that classify spaces of human habitation into two broad categories, 'rural' and 'urban' are a part of our everyday lexicon. We all have an intuitive sense of what they mean, the kind of spaces they refer to, and the distinction between them. But, as we did with 'space' and 'place', let us examine these terms more closely and see if we can articulate them with greater clarity.

Conceptually, 'rural' and 'urban' need each other for their mutual definitions--often what one is, the other is not. Usually, the distinction between them is drawn on the compounded ground of built environment, political economy, demography, governance, social relations, and cultural practices. We typically associate the rural with agrarian lifeworlds and the concomitant spatial logics and built environments that have historically and culturally solidified around them in different parts of the world. As a social space, the rural, especially in the Indian context, is characterized by caste-predicated hierarchies and social relations that are primarily community-based. These hierarchical relations are manifest in spatial terms as well, in how, for example, dwellings are typically laid out and clustered.

The urban, on the other hand, denotes often a qualitatively different kind and scale of human habitation and built environment (when compared to the rural). It signifies a space that harbors manifold greater population and population density; many more different kinds of labors and occupations; more intricate social arrangements than in predominantly agrarian contexts; qualitatively higher concentration of capital and wealth, and, consequently, much greater economic inequality. In spatial terms, this inequality is most starkly manifest as housing inequality--'slums' and 'homlessness' being two uniquely urban phenomena, as much a part of ancient cities as they are of the modern ones. Further, unlike in rural areas, urban social mores and cultural practices take the individual, rather than the community, as its basic unit. Consequently, the urban and the rural also implicate respectively different value systems and cultural ethos.

Peri-urban is a transitional zone between the rural and the urban. It is the outer periphery (hence the prefix 'peri-') of an urban concentration where the city and the countryside grate against each other, with the latter gradually yielding its space, built environment, and culture to the inexorable expansionary hunger for new land that marks contemporary urbanization the world over. In fact, our university campus is located in such a peri-urban part of Bangalore.

While the above definitions distinguish between urban and the rural in conceptual terms, how are two understood empirically, in terms of data and numbers? Each country has different metrics pertaining to size of the resident population, occupation, spatial extent, etc., that demarcate built environments as urban and rural. Government regularly collects data for which they define 'urban' and 'rural' in certain ways.

Can you find out how different government agencies define these terms in the Indian context?

Concept 3

KEY CONCEPT #4:
NEIGHBORHOOD

Neighborhood is, again, one of those spatial concepts that we just know from experience. Yet, like with the above concepts, it is worthwhile to reflect upon what we really mean by this commonly used term? What, really, is a neighborhood? At what point does one neighborhood end and another begins? Who decides its boundaries? And, as is the case with 'urban' and 'rural', how do the range of words we use in different Indian languages to mean a similar kind of space/place as 'neighborhood' relate to this English term? As you can see, something that we so intuitively know, when looked at through an analytical lens, suddenly presents many layers of ambiguity.

Let us, however, for the purpose of clarifying this key concept, put some basic parameters of understanding on the idea. Generalizing broadly, one can say that there are two fundamental ways in which we demarcate a space as 'neighborhood'--(i) experientially and (ii) through social, cultural, and civic mechanisms and institutions. It is through the interactions of these two registers that a given space is produced as 'neighborhood'.

From the experiential perspective, a neighborhood can be thought of as the outer extent of the space which we experience and move about in our everyday lives--beyond which if we venture, we usually takes some other form of transport, and within which we mostly, if not always, walk. Neighborhood is that extent of space that the basic human activity of walking defines at a quotidian level.

However, we do not simply walk about randomly in a space that we designate as our 'neighborhood'. Neighborhood is a concrete place that sustains and is sustained by a certain economy involving social interactions, labor, and commerce. We walk meaningfully in this space. We go over to a friend's house in the neighborhood, or to the 'local' market, or to the hangout spot where friends from the locality gather everyday. A neighborhood has its own cultural institutions--such as youth clubs and festival committees--other associational bodies, like the often problematic Resident Welfare Associations.

Sometimes neighborhoods are created by active government intervention in public housing. Often times, especially in the Indian context, they are marked by caste/occupational backgrounds of their residents. All of these and more factors come together to create boundaries--both visible and invisible--that define a neighborhood's territory, gives it a identity, and separate it from others.

But, again, we need to keep in mind that the 'experiential' and 'institutional' are analytical distinctions that we are drawing to understand 'neighborhood' conceptually. In 'real life', as indicated above, the two are inseparably merged.

Concept 4

NEIGHBORHOOD OBSERVATION PROJECT
GUIDELINES

It is advisable to divide up the task of neighborhood exploration amongst yourselves within the group, so that you maximize the area you cover. But you must venture out in groups of two at the very least and not alone. You can, of course, all work together if the group so decides.

Observe your surroundings with alert senses and reflect on them, both when you are moving and when you stop. What is your impression of the place based on sight, sound, and smell? If it is an open space, how far can you see? What appears in your field of vision? Do the same if you are in a residential area. What languages do you hear spoken? What languages to you see written? Who does this place belong to, and how is that communicated? Does the site have a distinctive smell? List any other questions that come to your mind, based on your experience. Notice your emotional reactions to what you observe (enjoyment, alarm, disapproval, etc.) and your changing states of mind (excitement, boredom, getting distracted). Note the time of the day when you are out doing fieldwork. It has a direct bearing on what you see and how you see it. Places and people appear very different in the evening than they do at mid-day, for example.
When you are finished, write down as many of your impressions and thoughts as you can. These will be your 'field-notes', your primary source for the project. Reflect on the strengths and limitations of this method of data collection.
Since the project is based primarily on data/information gathered from observation, it is not required that you speak with or interview the people you encounter while exploring the neighborhood. However, if you do happen to organically strike up a conversation with someone or group of people, you can use the information thus gathered in your presentation/report.

Take photographs. However, if you want to photograph an individual or a group of individuals, **always** take permission. Not only is this a key demand of field research ethics, you might find yourself in a dangerously troublesome situation if you do not obtain explicit permission from the individual(s) you intend to photograph.

Guidelines

1.2

THE LOCALITY OF INDIA