DOWNTOWN/UT
S. Lamar
“Cities were often shaped by a survival instinct resulting in a tendency to exclude weak minorities, a need to reinforce group identity, and a desire for
collective, passive defence.” (Calame and Charlesworth 2009)
The above quote seems to suggest that most communities that consider themselves distinct in some regard will project a sense of solidarity for the purposes of protection and as a show of some kind of power or control. As has already been discussed, in the urban context, this display of power politics often unfolds in the use, appropriation and manipulation of public space. This unspoken interplay between built/designed form and the manner in which people use these spaces can be described by distinguishing between the social production of space and the social construction of space, where the former is the material production of the space, i.e. the design of the built form, and the latter, the transformation of the space through people’s interaction and exchange which attribute the space with symbolic meaning (Low, 2000). This transformation of space in the realm of urban segregation and political
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expression is often in the form of appropriation of space and the marking of the limits of a group’s influence/jurisdiction. This may be achieved through a number of tangible means within the built environment, a few of which may include the above mentioned institutions and their built form, walls, gates and barricades, rituals and processions, and monuments and iconography.
Institutions, as discussed above, are fundamental to the development and perpetuation of a community’s identity and are both notional as well as occupy physical space within the built environment of any community; a location from which they operate and from which they impact both the spatial and trans-spatial communities associated with them. Rossi refers to this physicality of architecture and space as the ‘urban artefact’ and suggests that through it the relationship of space and society is a didactic one. Whilst the urban artefact is an object designed and formed by communities for their use, its permanent presence within the physical environment of the community ensures that it impacts the manner in which its users perceive and encounter both it, the space around it, and the happenings within it. These institutions may be as diverse as religious or political beliefs or events, a preferred newspaper, a community sports team, dietary needs and speciality food stores etc. When these occupy space, this spatial dimension, it could be argued is as important a manifestation of identities and their boundaries as the notion itself. They may provide a connection between the diaspora and the community at ‘home’ - a cultural and religious connection between the centre and the periphery so to speak (Eade and Garbin 2007) . They often provide charitable support to both older, needy members of the community as well as familiarising new arrivals with their new environment (Kershen and Vaughan, 2013). In many situations, they take on the role of articulating and securing the rights of their members within their host environment. Their presence on the ground often becomes the physical centre for the community to congregate whether it is in the form of a religious building or community centre or a specialised market/cafe, depending on the nature of the community (Suttles, 1970; Vaughan, 2015).
In Karachi, the locations in which members of the community gather are often determined by age and gender; most public spaces are commandeered by men with limited spaces for women. The daily communal life of men will play out in
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places such as the mosque, the local tea house - the eastern equivalent of the local pub, and/or spaces appropriated for local party meetings. Due to the density of the built environment and limited access to public open spaces, the street often plays the role of the playground where, after school, one often finds games of gulley cricket being played by the neighbourhood children whilst, during the day especially in lower income communities, this space becomes an extension of the domestic domain.
Walls, gates and barricades are a physical means of segregating and defining the “other”. These may take on the form of the “freedom walls” found in Belfast, designed and erected for the purposes of limiting interaction and thereby preventing violent clashes between communities or, as in the case of Johannesburg as described by Dawson (2006) of the “militarised laagerisation6” of affluent, white, suburban communities. In both cases, the erection of walls or
“urban fortification” demarcate territory and boundaries often with the intention of safeguarding residents, taking on the task of “urban policing” but unconsciously physically reinforcing notions of social and psychological segregation(Calame and Charlesworth 2009).
The idea of the gated community as well as the erection of gates and barricades around ‘sensitive’ sites is familiar in the context of a politically and religiously charged city like Karachi; due to ethnic and sectarian tension in the city, barricades and cordons can be found around imambargahs, mosques, and shrines, particularly during high religious occasions where large crowds are anticipated - majalis7 during the first ten days of the month of Muharram, large congregational prayers including the Friday prayers, urs8 celebrations held at significant shrines - military offices, the homes and offices of political figures, and the gated communities of the elite.
Rituals and processions may be either civic or religious in nature but in both
8Feast day or festival commemorating a saint.
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whether they are to encourage participation such as a carnival parade or induce a sense of submissiveness and awe as is often the intent of a military parade. In the case of migrant communities, these may be rituals or processions in some way associated with the country of origin or a display showing a conscious break from old traditions as in the case Polish, Congolese and Bangladeshi migrants in London (Eade and Garbin 2007; Garbin 2005). This public display in space is a projection of a collective identity in a public arena and is often used for the purpose of community building and generating a sense of solidarity.
Simultaneously, appropriation of space in the public domain is a show of power or, as in the case of migrant communities, a momentary inversion of an established power structure, where the community in question has tacit permission to commandeer a public space for the purposes of their ritual (Turner, 1995). Whilst in some cases this appropriation may be considered a challenge or a threat, Madanipour (2004) suggests that when public spaces are used as sites of display and performance and allow for the simultaneous and public display of difference, they provide for the well-being of the resident population of the area.
The Muharram processions in both Karachi and Mumbai are good examples of a situation where a minority is given precedence in a space; both processions take place in the inner city areas of both cities, main thoroughfares are cordoned off and public access to non-participants is limited. City officials provide security so as to allow the procession the right of passage. These processions are held primarily by the various Shiite communities of the city with limited participation by other religious sects as a mark of respect (Inskeep 2011, Masoudi). Similarly, the commandeering of streets and parks for the purposes of political rallies and meetings are a common occurrence where the scale of such meetings range from the neighbourhood level, where the street is the only option for public gathering as the domestic space is limited, to a city level where party leaders address large crowds of followers. The use of significant public spaces in Karachi such as Jinnah Park, Nishtar Park, the grounds of the Quaid’s Mazaar and M.A. Jinnah Road - one of the city’s main thoroughfares leading to the port - for the purposes of rallies, is a means of not only making ones presence felt, but also a show of strength - a means of saying “we can
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occupy this space if we wish to”. The use of the grounds of Mohummad Ali Jinnah9’s shrine - also known as Quaid-i-Azam ka Mazaar10 - being particularly significant in the political context as this becomes a means of establishing a sense of continuity with the original political cause. This gives weight to the notion that spaces like parks and recreational grounds, locations that are perhaps not as well integrated as the market place, become ideal ceremonial locations, providing the perfect platform for spectacle and the development of a socio-cultural identity.
Monuments and iconography may be associated with religious events or political jurisdiction in the form of flags and banners, the appearance of graffiti and the display of other forms of political propaganda incorporating recognisable party imagery, and commemorative landmarks in the urban landscape. Often a greater concentration of such interventions implies a similar concentration of adherents to the cause and as such reflects readable shifts in power as one moves through the urban environment.
Again in the context of the commemorative events associated with Muhharam, Masoudi refers to the increased use of flags, decorations, and sabils - refreshment stands - the closer one gets to the ceremonial centres of the Dongri area in Bombay. This is the area where most Shiite rituals are carried out commemorating the massacre of Imam Hussain and his family at Kerbala during the month of Muharram. Similarly, especially during election time and significant dates within a party’s own calendar, one finds loyal localities decked out in party colours and billboards depicting party leaders in inspirational poses.
In light of the above discussion, one may posit that political expression in space may be divided into a few broad actions; a physical political presence as part of the built environment in the form of offices, barricades and other security measures, political propaganda in the form of flags, banners and iconography, and a political activity within the built environment in the form of meetings, rallies, and “patrols” by armed youths – often found in low income neighbourhoods - that make a show of safeguarding a neighbourhood as a form
9 Considered the founder of the nation and Pakistan’s first Governor General after Partition.
10 “The tomb of the great leader”
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of vigilante justice (Smith and Low 2006) whilst the intent may be more in the way of discouraging behaviour that may in anyway undermine the supremacy of the local authority (Brubaker and Laitin 1998), whatever form that authority may take be it secular or religious.
As has been seen by this review, the spatial clustering of a community is a multifaceted urban phenomenon where the establishment, maintenance and persistence of the ghetto, ethnic enclave and the gated community have as much to do with socio-cultural and socio-economic reasons as they do with space. The inherent qualities of these spaces and how they relate to the city as a whole are critical to the ‘where’ and the ‘how’ of the processes of establishment and persistence of spatial clusters, and proximities, densities and separations in and of space bare an impact on community identity. Space syntax as a theory attempts to objectively and mathematically describe and analyse these inherent characteristics of spatial patterns in a system independently of any other variables such as economics or culture, viewing the system as a set of relationships between all spaces and all other spaces.
Space syntax is a theory and a set of tools developed to describe and analyse architectural and urban space by modelling spatial relationships as a continuous spatial network in the form of the fewest and longest intersecting lines of visibility and permeability. This means of modelling spatial networks facilitates a mathematical analysis of the relative accessibility between all spaces and all other spaces within a system. Those with the highest accessibility are termed as being highly integrated whilst those with the lowest accessibility are regarded as segregated. For the purposes of graphic representation, these mathematical values have been placed within a colour spectrum of red to blue where highly accessible or integrated line segments appear as red and those that are segregated appear as blue.
Space syntax research has shown that spatial configuration has had an impact on a wide array of urban phenomenon; urban segregation and deprivation in the East End of London (Vaughan et al, 2005, Vaughan and Geddes, 2009), unequal urban development and the lack of co-presence in public space in migrant localities in Stockholm (Legeby, 2010), the distribution of landuses in
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informal settlements and spatial distinctions between co-present ethnic communities (Khan, 2003; Raman, 2003, Charalambous and Hadjichristos, 2011). This shows how social phenomena can be investigated through space and be analysed as spatial phenomena. In this study too, space syntax has played a key role in deconstructing the relationship between the social behaviours and spatial patterns of Muhajir presence in Karachi.
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