Understanding insurgency through the lens of spatial dynamics and how can designers tackle it..
This Blog is written by Architect and Urban designer Daksh Jain from Udaipur. His core interest lies in urban economics, polity and issues related to insurgency and spatial dynamics. Lets understand from his perspective how communities and insurgency affect the planning and urban form and approaches to tackle such complex issues.
What is the role of caste in planning? How does caste, as an institution, manifests itself in planning and spatial segregation of the urban center?
How inequitable allocation of resources leads to spatial segregation and discrimination of caste leading to insurgent practices in the urban center?
Insurgent practices are an outcome of the social process that does not agree to the notions set up the authority or state as they might undermine their identity. Insurgency emerges from many interactions between numerous social, economic and spatial factors (Faranak Miraftab, Insurgent planning - Situating the radical planning in Global South, 2009)
Insurgency can be understood as revolt or protest against the state or authority following a period of suppression. Insurgent movements are a result of failure of state to provide an inclusive environment of growth and development. It manifests in urban centers creating deep cleavages in spatial form on the basis of socio-economic factors and transformation in urban fabric of the city.
It needs to be understood that insurgency is not only a result of ethnicity, or socio-economic factors but also the planning and design approaches that have been carried out. Cities have been blanketing the spaces of conflicts and contestations. These conflicts sprout due to difference in identities, ideologies, beliefs and practices. Within an urban setting, the conflicts paint the landscape into polarized territories where one territory tries to establish an upper hand over the other taking the advantage of its resources allocated by the authority. Seen as a global phenomenon, insurgency has been extensively linked to Global south. It varies in context and scale, ranging from global to local, having a deep impact on urban form.
Inequality traps exist on the basis of caste, color, gender, religion, economic status. These inequality traps sprout in the spatial form creating deep cleavages within the urban fabric. The modern planning and design approach do not take the consideration of these inequality traps; however in its manifestation, it becomes a prey to these traps; based on social hierarchy, economic status and cultural differences. One of the most important traps that still persist in the urban fabric is that of the caste. In traditional framework of caste system, the occupation, property and other economic rights of each caste are fixed and non-transferable (Anjana Thampi, Income inequality and polarization in India: The role of caste, 2017). If this was the case, it also influences the spatiality of city and points out how caste has been a major factor of polarization in Indian cities and how it unfolds the dichotomy of Indian administrative system in the urban areas and planning process.
The urban conflicts and violence erupt when differences in ideologies, beliefs and practices are not respected or aren’t allowed to flourish. Insurgent practices are an outcome of the social process that does not agree to the notions set up the authority or state as they might undermine their identity. Insurgency emerges from many interactions between numerous social, economic and spatial factors (Faranak Miraftab, Insurgent planning - Situating the radical planning in Global South, 2009). Outcomes of such processes can be measured through cultural production, political identity formation and alliances between different institutions and social groups.
The toolkit of modern planning is devoid of mechanisms to deal with the traps that perpetuates and develop and widens with the time. With the modern planning approach that sought to determine the overall development of urban centers, it was thought to be something more than that of resources allocation scheme in the urban context. But contrary to the expectations, modern planning also failed in its approach to provide an equitable solution. Unequal planning leads to disjunction in urban form, ruptures the city fabric, polarizes and marginalizes a certain section of society. The spatial segregation is one of the triggers that fuels insurgent practices and formation of spaces of insurgent citizenship within a city.
The insurgent practices in the urban centre transform the narratives of the urban form. It has the power to change the spatial systems that have been embedded in the city’s fabric, rupturing the entire morphology. The Pols in Ahmedabad following the riots of 2002, have been completely transformed as the socially and culturally diverse pols are now exclusive to one particular community and has resulted in the formation of ghettos, fracturing the culturally, socially diverse morphology. Thus, these practices have a huge impact on how city’s urban fabric is constituted before and after the insurgency has dried. One can clearly see the change in urban fabric post insurgency and how it gets muddled but there hasn’t been much discussion on the fact if already existing city fabric can be one of the factors that fuel these insurgent practices.
Insurgency has always been considered as an anthropological issue where social and political reasons lie at the core. The Dutch architect Aldo van Eyck asserted that ‘society has no form’ or that ‘we know nothing of vast municipality – we cannot come to grips with it – not as architects, planners, or anybody else… But if society has no form – how can architects build its counterform?’ This statement is a reflection upon how we abandon the narratives of cities by declaring the dissolution of social within the discipline of architecture and planning. This comes after an age of advocacy that supported the claims of planners and architects to be the solution creators of social crisis of Industrial capitalism (James Holston, Spaces of insurgent citizenship, 1995). There is a need to engage planners with the insurgent forms of social which often derive from and transform which are in ways heterogeneous and outside the state. The insurgent forms are found in organized grassroots mobilizations to everyday negotiation and conflict.
The urban spatial arrangement has always been influenced by the existing social disparities carried as a legacy. It creates ruptures in urban fabric by restricting mobility patterns, land holdings, type of built form and usage of public spaces. This shift was clearly reflected in the nature of social and political mobilizations that appeared during the 1980s. These ‘new social movements’ by the suppressed, questioned the wisdom of agendas of development, which were being pursued with much enthusiasm by the post-colonial state in India. India has witnessed strong opposing movements against the state and authorities. The Maoist insurgency, the North-eastern rebel groups, the Kashmir agitation, the Gurjar agitation, the Patidar reservation movement are a few examples where insurgency has been triggered by the policies and planning process followed by the state. The key function of the planning and design profession is mediation between conflicting needs and between the competing claims placed on society’s natural, social and economic resources.
In cities, caste has played the part in establishing credentials with urban form, neighborhoods, public spaces, amenities and utilities. All these factors when got caught in the air of political mobilization led to formation of spaces that were insurgent, violent, disruptive. Discrimination in spatial use and allocation of resources are the major forces that assert them to revolt against the state. With the stakeholders varying from the state to urban local body to community itself, it shows who and how discriminated community spatially, economically, and socially based on caste bias and behavioural pattern.
Urban design is considered as a policy towards these issues. It links urban planning, governance, architecture and tissue. The tactical interventions, urban inserts act as a catalyst to bring the change in spatial discrimination. However, the limitation lies in the fact that caste is a subjective matter and carries huge biases. Urban design may address the spatial dimension but it cannot provide a concrete solution to the issue of social insurgency. This sets the limitation as it can’t alter the behavioural pattern and inherent caste bias amongst people. Planning, representation, accessibility, mobility, permeability may be granted through strategic interventions at various scales and levels (from city to urban grain) but it can’t grant social acceptance by everyone. The intervention and strategies adopted may provide a time based solution to the caste based insurgent practice but it cannot provide a solution to entire politically backed movement and insurgent mobilization.
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