As stated earlier, the segregation of a community from the majority may be the result of force, choice or economic constraints. In the case of both forced segregation or segregation of choice, separation of a community is often the outcome of concerns of purity and contamination of space whether it is the case of purging the spaces of the majority by expelling or containing the other or the avoidance of contamination and dilution of one’s culture by distancing the group from the majority culture. These notions of forced or chosen separation appear to have nuances of positive and negative features to them; Peach (1996) suggests that there may be positive processes to be found in what is often seen as forced segregation as well as drawbacks to a segregation by choice. For example, what may have started out as a “fear of touching” and thus resulted in confining the Jewish community in Venice to the Ghetto, transformed into a
4 The virtual community is “the pattern of natural co-presence brought about through the influence of spatial design on movement and other related aspects of space use. (Hillier, 1996 2007, p. 141)
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place where the community realised their uninhibited self with a degree of externally provided protection and without fear of persecution within the confines of the ghetto. The community established the very first permanent synagogues in Europe here where people dressed, interacted and worshipped as they pleased (Sennett, 1996).
Shirlow and Murtagh (2006), like Sennett, suggest that spatial segregation helps to manifest with greater clarity belief structures and other such cultural solidarities. In fact Sennett seems to posit that it was the physical proximity provided by the Jewish Ghetto that was instrumental in consolidating the Jewish identity of otherwise disparate groups whose only commonality was their Jewish faith in its broadest and most varied definition. This issue of proximity as a key factor in the emergence of identity seems to apply to the Muhajir community. As discussed earlier, this is a community formed of an amalgamation of refugee groups from diverse geographical backgrounds brought together under extenuating circumstances in a few choice locations, the socio-spatial outcome of which will be analysed and discussed further in this study. It should also be noted at this stage that this discussion does not claim that all proximities in a closed system will result in a natural sense of community. In fact, the literature seems to suggest that it simply facilitates a consolidation of ideas and values that the community in question already have in common; as in the case of both Catholic and Protestant communities in Belfast and the Jewish and German communities in Venice, thereby manifesting an apparent correspondence between social and spatial structures, which is only there by virtue of circumstance (or conflict, or force).
Communities where both social and spatial structures coincide are perhaps what has given rise to the misconception that placing people within a closed system will automatically give rise to a ‘community’ that will live and socialise together, coming together to defend their territory should they be threatened by an external force. Oscar Newman goes as far as to suggest that where society and space do not correspond, society deteriorates into a combative environment. Conversely, it has been argued that territorial warfare is a social issue of perceptions of difference, and not one of non-correspondence of space and society; “Thus segregated spaces are representational and designed
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through exaggerated notions of social difference and complex patterns of exclusion that are tied to those who conform to defined symbolic and cultural codes within the ‘home’ territory.” (Shirlow and Murtagh, 2006), thus suggesting that spatial segregation is in fact the outcome of a social desire to maintain a distinct identity.
Whilst language, religion, politics etc., may give a community an ideology to band around, where numbers reach a critical mass, communities may establish and commandeer institutions and spaces to safeguard and perpetuate the above mentioned commonalities of culture and ideological thought as well as anchor them in and to a space, as these institutions now become viable and sustainable entities (Waterman and Kosmin, 1987). These communal institutions may include religious and political institutions, places of commerce - shops catering to specific cultural needs - places of recreation such as playing fields, local ‘hang-outs’ etc. - and educational institutions (Suttles, 1968). In fact, Vertovec (1995) argues, as seen in the case of Indian migrants to the Caribbean, the establishment of communal institutions for the preservation and perpetuation of a community’s culture is a critical part of the resettlement process and becomes a stepping stone to the self-actualisation of the community both spatially and politically within the host environment. These institutions become critical to the maintenance of perceived differences; often facilities not available within the enclave, residents will either forgo or seek out in locations similar or sympathetic to the ideology of the user or in neutral territory (Shirlow and Murtagh, 2006). This preference of patronage is often driven by a fear of being confronted by an opposing group and in so doing;
residents consolidate this sense of segregation and in turn, establish the edges of the group’s territory whilst this quest for resources raises an awareness of their larger trans-spatial community.
Whilst Newman’s ‘theory of defensible space’ may not apply to all communities, those communities tied together through affiliations of ethnicity, language, religion and/or politics may be seen to demarcate and protect their spaces. This may be through both physical markers such as flags, murals and graffiti, boundary walls, as well as rituals and traditions in the form of parades and processions. Like institutions, these are ‘events’ around which the community is
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seen to rally and build its identity (Shirlow and Murtagh, 2006). Where numbers allow - and where both political and economic power lie in the hands of the community in question - transpatial ties of sympathetic communities may be further consolidated through various forms of media; newspaper, electronic media networks etc. The ability of any community to be able to establish these transpatial institutions ties back to Coakley’s initial claim that any community will go from identification of the self as different, to the collective’s demand for official acknowledgement of their distinctiveness from those that may be considered the ‘norm’.
Through a process of ‘chain migration’; a process of kinship based in-migration, segregated ethnic enclaves become self-sustaining systems where, even if the community is losing members through assimilation or out-migration, newer members of the community are being periodically inducted (Ballard, 2003). The enclave may serve as a place of acclimatisation where new-comers can find their feet yet have the advantage of doing so in a sympathetic environment.
Seeing as chain migration is facilitated through kinship ties established in the homeland, often the spatial outcome of this process within the enclave is a replication of spatial proximities ‘at home’. Over time, these self-sustaining systems have been seen to densify both spatially and population wise, but this periodic influx is only partially responsible for the densification ad persistence of many migrant enclaves. In many cases these enclaves are densifying due to the low income jobs and poor living conditions of inhabitant of these settlements. These aspects that are linked to the spatial configuration of the area as well as an informal biased applied to the housing market make the ethnic enclave increasingly difficult to leave for older residents (Phillips, 2006).
Although the beginning of such an ethno-religious enclave may lie in the commonality of some fundamental ideas for the inhabitants, Shirlow and Murtagh (2006) suggest that this sense of spatial enclosure facilitates a conceptual control of ideas. They posit that a closed system used by a fixed group of people, means that surveillance becomes easier, facilitating the monitoring and removal of strangers. This in turn becomes the perfect environment for the cultivation of a paramilitary culture; domestic security groups take on the task of safeguarding ideologies under the pretext of ensuring
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the safety of their fellow residents. Despite this policing of ideology and space, this does not imply that culture, identity and space are immutable and fixed. In fact Werbner (2005) suggests that herein lies the paradox; whilst new migrants feel the need to set themselves apart from their host community for the purposes of preservation of their culture, the definition of culture within these communities is fluid and constantly undergoing additions and amendments. In the case of the Muhajireen, this fluidity of migrant identities and ethnic definition is a feature that they use to their political advantage. The term generally applies to the Urdu-speaking city dweller but may just as easily be applicable to the
‘oppressed middle-class’ or anyone who has sacrificed “blood and lives for the sake of Muslim unity” (Verkaaik, 1994) thereby allowing for inclusions and exclusions at the whim of the minority group in question.