Week 11 Comments/More Housing
If you have a minute you may want to check out the UN's position w/ regards to housing production:
http://www.unhabitat.org/content.asp?typeid=19&catid=281&cid=378
http://www.unhabitat.org/content.asp?typeid=19&catid=281&cid=378
posted by Meredith at 10/30/2008 02:39:00 PM
17 Comments:
What Arjun Appadurai describes is a city that has been built with a large informal sector; which continues to be supported not only by locals- national economies and markets but also global investment. Some of these informal aspects can be criminal, and that was what we discussed last week when referencing China’s financial support and interest in politics that are criminal. It is also important or interesting to consider the political displacement that occurs in Mumbai (one that should be responsible for the distribution of wealth - monetary and other) both due to current international activity as well as historical.
Often the example of women in Mumbai shanty towns is given to elaborate on the vitalities and potential these communities have to build their own infrastructure as well as produce funds that can give them a voice in local municipalities. From the readings it seems that if these people do not make themselves part of this imagined community, no one in their nation will. (Off course this is an overstatement because we know that there are people who care) In reading Appadurai it seems that everyone is vulnerable to potential mishaps in the financial realm. There is no way to avoid it especially since it is a very visual presence.
The city seems to battle with its identity both in an economic “deindustrialized” as well as a post colonial state – very chronological in both aspects. Appadurai compares Baurdel’s description of European medieval markets to Mumbai; with a heavy black market.
[I looked into Appadurai and found out his connection to (Benedict Anderson’s) “print-capitalism” and also imagined communities….more so social imaginary what he calls the five dimension of global cultural flow – ethnoscapes – mediascapes – technoscapes – finanscapes – ideoscapes.]
At first I thought Appadurai’s description of Bombay was going to be very similar to that of other cities we have already discussed in this course. Cities suffering from overpopulation. Cities that experience heavy migrations of the rural poor in hopes of finding better wages. Cities with poor infrastructure and housing options to accommodate the growing populations which results in the birth of slums. Although Bombay shares all of these urban dilemmas, Appadurai succeeds in demonstrating how it is unique in the following ways.
Firstly, in the 70s, 80s and early 90s the political party Shiva Sena worked to ethnicize Bombay, India’s most cosmopolitan city. In other words, urban space was being redefined as Hindu space. This change not only brought on violence against Muslims living in Bombay but also immensely affected trade, finance and industrial manufacture of the city.
Appadurai’s account of the measure of wealth in Bombay especially fascinated me. Liquidity is the dominant criterion for prosperity. In other words, cash was king while credit and mortgages were not at all widely practiced. It is interesting to contrast Bombay’s attitude towards finance and trade with that of our own. Such transactions would never take place between American firms/companies unless illicit activity was being conducted. The trust that is required during cash transactions in Bombay is completely foreign to us.
Another interesting aspect of Bombay that I find unique is the fact that the poor and the rich live side by side. There is no real distinction between poor neighborhoods and wealthy ones. Appadurai writes that for the very poor, home is anywhere. He goes even further to describe the sleeping body as “the most contained form of the spectral house” (638). By “spectral” he describes the fantasies of urban planning that exist in Bombay. With dissolving industry (especially textiles), owners of abandoned factories flirt with the idea of transforming these buildings into housing for the poor.
I would like to comment on Ackbar Abbas’ “Cosmopolitan De-scriptions: Shanghai and Hong Kong. The idealistic definition as proposed by Ulf Hannerz is “an orientation, a willingness to engage with the other… an intellectual and aesthetic stance of openness toward divergent cultural experiences.” Abbas argues that in order to understand a realistic concept of cosmopolitanism we must understand the historical situations from which they emerged. In more detail Abbas investigates the “different situation in which “divergent cultural experiences” are not freely chosen but force s on us, using Shanghai and Hong Kong as examples to illustrate the idea of colonialism forcing cosmopolitanism.
Abbas then goes on to explain the complexity of the city and its ability to form the “non space”: a place in which cosmopolitanism emerges. These places are the result of “an excess of overcomplexity, where there are a blurring of signs and an overlapping of spatial and temporal grids, all of which make urban signs and images difficult to read”. Abbas then Identified the idea of De-scirption: the doing away with explanation which often causes one to misunderstand a space in the same way we can misunderstand a language.
This description of the non-place struck my interest as I tried to think of areas that I have seen that could be on the breaking point of a non place, where the emergence of a new cosmopolitism would soon occur. In Abbas’ account, the “non place” was in the grotesque streets of old Shanghai where the extraterritorial cultures of the British, American, and French merged creating a new Shanghai. In reading I became curious if this process of extraterritorial synthesis can occur on a smaller scale, and if then it would still be considered an emergence of cosmopolitanism. More specifically I was thinking about NYC’s Chinatown and Lower East siders. An area saturated with signs, all of which become blurred and overlapped, different community groups all of which are ethnically, economically and socially different, but in their complexity they seems have all the characteristics of the non-space, a place in which multiple cultures have emerged into one functioning organism, all the while retaining their own specific ethnic and cultural traditions. I am aware that I may be making the mistake of identifying a new culture instead of the emergence of a new cosmopolitanism, but I feel it is worth noting the ability for a community of “others” to work simultaneously with those seen as the “natives” and their ability to individually and collectively function as a new productive community.
I would like to comment on Appadurai’s article in relation to the notion of globalization we discussed in class last week. First of all, it was unfortunate of Bombay that they couldn’t keep up with the latest technology and equipment in textile industry; and the inability to respond to the international market’s demand for labor work, Bombay had lost its clients in the labor market and also its multinationals who competed to rent a place with a high rent. The decosmopolitan/dematerialization situation was the result of globalization which heavily affected a big industry as Bombay.
However, the decrease of revenue does not take away Bombay’s members’ culture, belief, and religion. The richness of their materialization is still highly embedded within the community. There were a lot of street businesses going on, selling household items. People purchase them regardless of where to put them in their tight housing situation, thus creating a new urban culture of “houseless domesticity.” I am fascinated to see their culture able to hold people together. It was strong enough to become a business. These street vendors knew the values of the stolen domestic items. Thus, it was a mutual process, exchanging happiness in the forms of cash flow and a representation of a modern domesticity. The active business itself, succeeded by having both buyers and sellers, has made it completely clear that the culture had never been destroyed in spite of the failure in its global economy.
Nonetheless, this has created a new urban condition of a growing poor and homeless population in Bombay. The explosion in 1992-1993 was to create a new realm of belief and to get rid of Muslim people, mostly the urban poor. Based on my statement from the previous paragraph, it is obvious that the culture of living couldn’t be erased from the community. The same is true for the Hindus’ attempt to destroy Muslims’ beliefs and religion. Moreover, the Muslims, having been hurt both physically and traditionally, started forming their own groups who corrupt and deceive the Hindus in return.
From my perspective, the Hindus try to do catch up with the global economy and industry by attempting to get Bombay back on track, trying to cleanse the city. Yet, what the globalization only did to the Hindus was to turn themselves against their same nation members under the label of a different belief system which has brought the city, or country as a whole, to a more severe condition, traditionally, economically, and politically.
Ackbar Abbas quotes, “Beyond the old cosmopolis modelled on ancient Rome, the world-city will surge forth, an omnipolis whose major clinical symptom is the stock exchange system, today computerized and globalized” (Paul Virilio, 18). The world city is an interesting term. The global economy has progressed exponentially over the past two decades. This evolution can be directly correlated with the utilization of the internet. I like the terminology used in this quote. Virilio goes on to use the term “virtual financial bubble” in which the world’s cities will enter dire emergence. The concept of cosmopolitanism is an ever changing ideal and arguably being phased out by a global world population. As generations progress technology cultural barriers will fall. Patriotism will diminish. New York, London, and Tokyo and three of the main cities where world recognized architects practice. In these cities ones can eat at the same restaurants, buy clothes from the same stores and work on global architecture projects. As Abbas states, the world is a confusing place. On the architectural scale, there are constant progressions to embody. The global scale of the world’s cities disrupts the cosmopolitanism of living in Paris or Madrid. Images of the city are available instantaneously from an internet connection. Colonial cities such as Hong Kong are discussed in the article. Hong Kong is the center of trade between Europe and Asia thus occupants of the city are in constant movement.
Shanghai and Hong Kong are port cities. Ports are an enormous form of wealth thus creating the cosmopolitan idea. Thinking of the power, architecture and economic prosperity of various cities ports are a common theme. In addition to geographic implications ports have been easily colonized. Fleets would enter the ports and take over the trade and form hybrid cultures. These hybrid cultures are what push current architecture and define the cosmopolitan world we practice within. Orientalism may be a concept f the past as the global culture continues to grow.
I was interested in Arjun Appadurai’s discussion of manufacturing history and labor in Bombay. The recent transformations of the old manufacturing center in Bombay—both real and “imposed”—are especially telling when juxtaposed with Manuel Castells’ and Sassen’s discussion of globalization and our in-class discussion last week regarding the situation in China, and specifically in Shenyang.
In class we discussed the world wide move towards “flexible, part-time, and insecure forms of labor.” In this article, Appadurai tells step by step how the entire process of globalization results in this type of laborer—not actually in Bombay, but in small towns outside of the city. Once Bombay is tied into the global network of manufacturing, for example, they are forced to modernize their equipment. Equipment eventually grows obsolete and owners are forced to modernize facilities and means of production. Central Bombay had historically been the core manufacturing district with a strong union presence. Rather than modernize in the city and deal with unions there, Bombay’s capitalists moved to smaller towns of Maharashtra state. Here, the workforce is “cheaper and less militant.”
Appadurai makes the same point as Sassen, that not all sectors can be moved out of the city. While national and transnational manufacturing is leaving the city for cheaper wages, less militant workforce, etc outside of the city, Bombay is still home to legal, political and fiscal enterprises. It is also home to a growing service economy/working class (jobs in restaurants, domestic service, film industry, etc).
In our discussions this semester, we tended to look at 'western' and 'non-western' as two simple categories. We see the non-western, dominated culture as the 'other", opposed to us. Now that we have a reasonable grasp on those two categories, though, it makes sense to start looking a bit deeper - to explore the separations and the common grounds that exist within the non-western category.
The two readings for this week, Abbas and Appadurai, dissect the idea of cosmopolitanism as it pertains to very different situations. Ackbar Abbas describes the cosmopolitan city redefined for the 21st century, as a transnational place. It is losing the qualities that tie it to its history, instead becoming so tied to globalism that it is more linked to the global culture than its country. The city becomes merely a node in the international economic and social network. Arjun Appadurai, on the other hand, explores the converse situation of cosmopolitanism, using Mumbai as an example. Describing the economic structure of the city, he takes the reader through its recent social, ethnic, and religious struggles. Because of these struggles, the city becomes a socially charged place. It embodies the conflict between its inhabitants. Even though Mumbai plays an important role in globalization, it can't escape its ethnic baggage.
The striking difference between these two texts makes me wonder if this is really a difference between the cities themselves, or between the authors' viewpoints. It would surprise me if Shanghai had none of the ethnic struggles that happened in Mumbai, and was truly as placeless as Abbas seems to suggest. All three cities seem like they should have a lot in common by being new centers of the global economy, and I'd like to know a little more background information before accepting them as such opposites.
Spectral Housing and Urban Cleaning: Notes on Millennial Mumbai by Arjun Appadurai.
Decosmopolization where cash is king.
‘social black holes’ of global capital.
‘ethnicization of the city’ ownership of city… minority enemies… breeds prejudices…... and violence
Cash and capital
“signature of the visible”
Pocket to pocket cash is seemingly faster than credit, but with the limited insurance of words for buyer seller protection. I can hardly imagine a cash based economy and what chaos that would bring to commerce, ownership, and life in general. To me black market products have been related to consumer excess: electronics, software, sex, drugs, ect. When the black market sub-economy leaks over into, what I consider, the basic needs market (food, water, shelter); then desperation is added to the equation. He even draws parallels to the housing market relative to the sociological structure of the prostitution industry: “pimp sociologies” and the housing market buyer/seller “tease”.
Appadurai uses the word ‘anxious’ to describe Bombay’s cash to capital relationship. Due to:
-Flight of industrial capital
away from city
-Multinational corporations
working in Indian market; black
markets…. Housing
-Deindustrialization of textile
industry (from multinational
competition and technology)
Appaduri paints a visual diagram of edge condition and social awareness when he addresses the average working class live/work relationship by workers morphing from “oppressed dwellers” to well-dressed employed middle class thru the “complex transformations in transit”.
Work becomes a “more secure [space] of recognition, comfort, and predictability” over ones home. Space almost becomes inverted. (Like in architecture school: eat, sleep, work in the same space… ‘home’ is a place were you can occasionally stop by for a shower and a nap.)
Pavement dwellers, slum dwellers…. Roof dwellers… interstitial gray space for living
Parasite dwellers… home within the physical body
Public sleeping = spectral housing “housing that exists only by implication and by imputation. The sleeping body (which is almost always the laboring body or the indigent body) in its public, vulnerable, and inactive form is the most contained form of the spectral house.” <<< This concept intrigues me for architectural experimentation of the mobile….temporary… public/private relationship of urban dwelling.
This week, I would like to comment on Arjun Appadurai’s Spectral Housing and Urban Cleansing.
Mumbai, at one point in history was considered a well managed , Fordist city. A city where people had jobs and housing. Due to improvement in transportation, people were able to commute to city to work. A city that was once dominated by trade and manufacture. City seemed to do well until 1970s, at this time city started to crumble. Wealthy, who were not as affected by steady dematerialization of Mumbai’s economy gained power who developed enemies among minorities.
Control of Shiva Sena and their attempt to ethnically cleanse city was not the only cause of decline in Mumbai’s economy, but also the general population. The ill minded approach of business, was one of the core reason for the economic decline. This was so prevalent, but somehow, as chaotic and untrustworthy this was, it became part of their usual life. It was their business scheme.
As money became the center point and driving force of people’s decision making, the society started to deal many transaction “under the table” where they tried to keep their money from the government and from people. It seems very individualized greed that is present throughout Mumbai. As the wealthy pocketed their money, the poor became street dwellers, and minorities discriminated, which made them retaliate. During all this time, wealthy, poor, and minority all live side by side. It is interesting that Mumbai is a conglomerate of family, friends, and enemy, in such a close proximity.
Thoughts stemming from United Nations housing policies and general thoughts on housing:
This week I would like to comment not on the articles we read per-say but a theme or observation I have noticed developing over the last month or so from reading these documents. The observation I have is the comparison of these countries housing policies and situations to that of our own situation here in the United States. The issue of housing and more generically, shelter is largely contest in the U.S. as a fundamental right of its citizens. What is housing (purely in terms of what is acceptable in American culture)? Is it a roof, an enclosed space, a space designated as housing? This is where your first contrast between the U.S. and other countries arises. The U.S. does not define housing as an inhabitable space a.k.a. an abandoned warehouse or a car. Generalizing greatly, it defines housing as what most people understand housing to be. A structure built or converted into a space meant for permanent inhabitation and including heating plumbing and a recognized postal address. Anything that does not fit into this general description is not classified as housing. Compare that to Lagos where people live in cardboard or wood shacks, permanently in the street or to the favella structures where homes are made out of pieces and scraps found and bought and you see the clear difference. My next thought is that while people in the non-US housing world may have more lenient definitions of what housing may be that does not necessarily make them worse-off than the “homeless” of America. The United States defines the poverty line at an annual in come of $16,000 or less. $16,001 dollars and you are living above the poverty line. To us, that amount is tiny whereas in Venezuela that is a humungous amount of money for a regular favella inhabitant. $16,000 dollars could quite possibly move you out of the Favella living situation. So far the non-US slum dwellers are coming off better than the American ones. They won’t be kicked out of their “homes” for building communities and structures they can afford. In addition, the Fair Housing Market (FHM) defines affordable housing as one where 30% or less of you monthly income goes to your rent and 40% or less goes to your monthly mortgage payment. How many people do you know who could afford to live in a $600 a month rent apartment on $16,000 a year and eat, pay for school, childcare, taxes, medical bills etc. and still make ends meet or possibly save a few pennies. Basically, without turning this post into a huge agenda-spiked comment, the United States, along with many other countries, needs to form better housing policies and options for the low-income and extreme-low-income parts of the housing spectrum. While it is a liveable situation, are favellas in South America and dirty lead infested Factories in China really desirable? Truly, I think it’s a toss-up between situational opportunities and the lack thereof. I don’t know but I think I’d rather be living in a favella with a constant roof over my head and the knowledge that I could provide for myself and my family and keep that roof over my head than have $16,000 dollars and not know how or if I am able to feed and shelter my family tomorrow.
As much as we like to discourage and disassemble slums and clusters of informal housing, look at societies where there is either formal housing or squatter/homelessness and wonder if a lack of informal housing really makes society a healthier place.
In this weeks reading again my focus lies on the economy of the globalization.
The reading of Ackbar Abbas brings up some interesting conclusions about the the global economy its speed and behavior.
"If the speed of change is creating spaces we do not understand, then one strategy
might be to slow things down—to preserve some almost erased concept of civil-
ity and respect for otherness in the midst of chaos."
He is discribing the problem of cosmopolitanism how we are to negotiate the transnational space that global capital produces.
The global arbitrage refers to the way profits are
made, through the use of electronic technologies,
like the internet or digital trading systems.
Whole new professions have been created for example the day trader.
He is concerned with the high speculative way of stock trading, buying and selling within one actual
trading day.
These new digital typs of a broker are speculating on price differentials in markets situated in different time zones and parts of the world.
"That is: arbitrage
maximises profits by setting up operations in a world of speed and virtuality, and
thereby breaking down the traditional boundaries of time and space."
Actually the absent of physical particpation on the trading and the possibilety of being in many places at the same time lead to rise of speed and anonymity which is difficlult to control.
It aggregates a complexity in which the virtual space is deeply weaved into the market and and the global economy.
A tale of two cities?
No not the Charles Dickens story that honestly Vie never read, and actually fell asleep to while watching it in one of my 7th grade history classes, which just so happened to be the first time I ever fell asleep in any class…
No not that story but the story of Bombay, no I mean Mumbai, no really Bombay… or at least that’s what my mind is doing after reading Arjun Appadurai’s “Spectral Housing and Urban Cleansing: Notes on Millennial Mumbai”. I do not know if it’s the fact that vie only slept 3 hours in the past two days or if multiple instances of similar situations are all beginning to run together, but I feel as if ive heard most of this story before. Most but not all. What Ive taken away from this article is the stratification between the rich and the poor in Mumbai but the similar means of using black markets to accomplish their goals, how even with an expanding global market and more money coming in the less capital there really is.
At least I think that’s what ive gotten out of this, in all honesty what I recall the most are specific quotes from the article.
“And many of them undergo complex transformations in transit, turning from oppressed dwellers in shantytowns, slums, and disposable housing into well-dressed clerks, nurses, postmen, bank tellers, and secretaries.”
What this makes me think of, is how in many instances throughout this article I relate what is happening to what I know of the world around me. And I keep on finding myself thinking, is what is happening in Bombay…errr…. Mumbai does not sound entirely different from what I know, it is in fact just a more extreme iteration of the same story. It is the disparity between the extremes that forms the heart of what is being said. Where once again the poor and improvised self organize into the world around to survive (and in some cased thrive) while the rich… those who assume to set the rules retreat amongst themselves.
Mumbai - the City of Cash.
Cash and multinational corporations tempted by new market seductions in India are two of the largest factors in contributing, instead of providing a solution, to the serious lack of housing in Bombay according to Appadurai’s argument in the chapters, City of Cash and Spectral Housing. Much of the industrial sector of Bombay has deserted thousands of acres of factory space, - seeking lower rents, cleaner environments, more pliant labor, and simpler logistical systems. These abandoned spaces have been seen as much welcomed spaces that could be opened up for the homeless. However it is the multinational corporations who, whilst hiding these silent empty spaces behind high walls, prevent this positive solution presented by the families that control these parts of the industry, as Appadurai argues, the “… global finance and its indigenous counterparts—as well as a host of other enterprises that rely on trade, speculation, and investment—still find Mumbai seductive, so that the pyramid of high prices and rampant inflation is kept alive and every square foot of housing is defended as personal patrimony.
According to Appadurai there are rumors of big corporations and crime syndicates planning a “feast of hidden real estate just beyond the famine of the streets and buildings of visible Mumbai.” This hidden real estate is what he sees as a vast land ready to be transformed with a simple stroke of a pen.
Earlier in the chapter he also describes the old rent buildings in South and Central Bombay as
mausoleums in a sea of homeless bodies. These buildings, which are left to decay in order to force the old rent paying tenants out and bring in new and wealthy evictable multinational tenants, have been locked down by their former tenants and left empty.
So it seems that, even in Central Bombay, there are some possible solutions and opportunities to reduce the incredible lack of housing if it wasn’t for the greed of the landlords and the multinational corporations.
These obvious possibilities, as Appadurai calles fantasy housing schemes and empty flats, were one of the main causes of the Hinduization of public spaces and the Anti-Muslim violence which erupted in the densest and poorest areas in Bombay, in a form of national regionalism introduced by the Shiva Sena. The Hindus violence against the Muslims, blaming them for the lack of housing, seeing their structures as stolen from the Hindus, torching their businesses, not to mention the killings, reminds me of the beginnings of the holocaust. Appadurai is astonished that the poorest and worst off have not erupted more often and I agree, but this also shows that the lack of housing can cause much bigger problems than anyone can imagine.
As the readings this week deal with the notion of cosmopolitanism, I think it would be helpful to have a definition in mind for this term. The Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines it as follows:
1: having worldwide rather than limited or provincial scope or bearing
2: having wide international sophistication : worldly
3: composed of persons, constituents, or elements from all or many parts of the world
4: found in most parts of the world and under varied ecological conditions
It seems to me that this weeks readings, treat the term as a synonym to globalization. Both deal with similar issues, such as mixing of cultures, international exchange of ideas, and economic transactions. Consequently a lot of the tensions and problems perceived and/or real that are associated with globalization as are also applicable to cosmopolitan centers. I thought it was quite interesting to read about Shanghai and Mumbai and how these places were affected by and dealt with their cosmopolitan status.
Reading “Spectral Housing…” brings to my mind the explication that Soto did in “The Other Path” about the reason of migration and the attraction that a “formal” city has over those poor ones, but this time a got to see it in different way, I was amazed reading how a society that has so many different people from all over the world, specially from India and Asia has so many different faces in one single body. The overview that Arjun does, makes me understand in a more clear way the result of slums and “pavement dwellers”, I can see now that as a result of a “monopolized economy” and so many different types of “illegal” businesses that “informal” economy is really taking over in order to provide for themselves the type of ingress that the formal economy doesn’t give to them, so as a result another “monopolized economy” is built and this time, is created by the middle class and the poor class and this creates a for never ending battle of corruption and illegalization, “I have suggested that so far that Bombay belongs to a group of cities in which global wealth and local poverty articulate a growing contradiction)pag.630.
I think this reading is more informative that critical, so I’ll like to discuss this information in a more informal perception at class that analyzing what I consider a research.
So much to say and so little space and time. Abbas and Appardurai writings were okay although I did feel Abbas was making some of the same definition errors that Bruce Robbins was making. With that being said I’m going to focus on a few of Robbins points and hopefully bring up points which we can cover in class.
At the end of the 2nd page Robbins describes that “any cosmopolitanism’s normative or idealizing power must acknowledge the actual historical and geographical contexts from which it emerges, and, second, that such an acknowledgement need not prove fatal.” Robbins I feel is making the mistake of using cosmopolitanism as an umbrella concept to describe any large city. Maybe what he is referring to is more of a metropolitanism concept rather than cosmopolitanism? Take Chicago for example. It’s “power” comes from its historical and geographical contexts. It serves as the heart of the Midwest and a unifying central junction point for the whole nation. Although Chicago does have a healthy sector of the population which could be termed global the core of Chicago’s cultural interaction is with the rest of the country and less affected by international influences. This is why I would consider Chicago a metropolitan city versus a cosmopolitan city and is more in line with Robbins description of Cosmopolitanism. New York or London on the other I would classify as cosmopolitans based not on Robbins description but on the reversal of his description. Cosmopolitanism isn’t based on individual and unique historical or geographic context but more on the similarities of their history and geographic context which blur their individuality.
This takes me to point number two regarding ideas on globalizations and cosmopolitics. The Nation article addressed a “childish” need to have a connection to a “place”. Robbins makes the comment that “We are connected to all sorts of places, casually if not always consciously, including many that we have never traveled to, that we have perhaps only seen on television…” I ignore the final part of his statement because it is completely ludicrous. That level of vagueness and ambiguity should only be used by politicians and people who where crystals and talk to grass. What I would rather concentrate on is dealing with the idea of connectivity to “place”. From a historical context I can understand why we have always made a connection to a “place”. It was usually based on protection and loyalty/servitude to our protectors. But in this smaller global existence that we belong to is it necessary? This isn’t a question of whether we need connections but more a question of what they should be based on? Place? Religion? Race? Economic status? Education?
Again so many points and so little time and space. Althoug I am over 400 words I have to address one of Abbas statements. On page 781 Abbas states “preservation well within competence of the state; it is also a way by which the state can enter the global market through promoting the city’s past-that is through the heritage industry”. Is tourism a sign of entering the global market? Would we consider visiting the Alamo or Manchu pinchu entering the global market?
Considering that I my research project is based off of Pre and Post British Colonization within Hong Kong, I found myself most attracted to the ‘Cosmopolitan De-scriptions: Shanghai and Hong Kong’ reading, by Ackar Abbas. Abbas first proposes questions based off of cultures not given free choice –
“…But what about a situation where these conditions are not available – a situation where “divergent cultural experiences” are not freely chosen but forced on us, as they are under colonialism? What form of “openness’ should we cultivate then, and would this constitute a cosmopolitan stance or a compradorist one? Could cosmopolitanism be one version of “cultural imperialism”? Is there a chapter missing in Borges’s ‘A Universal History of Infamy,’ a chapter on colonialism as infamy?”
To me, all of these questions are extremely valid and truly assist to shape the course of conversation throughout the rest of the article. Abbas continues dialoguing to answer “that to understand cosmopolitanism and its valences, we will have to take account of the historical conditions under which it arises – then we will need to turn from Borges’s time to our own and to consider the question of globalism.”
In terms defined by Abbas, I believe that the terms colonialism and globalism go hand in hand. Both Shanghai and Hong Kong cosmopolitan centers emerged under colonial conditions, but within different time periods. In fact, Hong Kong rose due to the downfall of Shanghai. While both developed under similar circumstances, both are defined within different definitions of space. I found this most interesting in Abbas’ attention towards describing the spatial history of “reappearance” in Shanghai and “disappearance” in Hong Kong.
Abbas goes into great detail to interpret the “disappearance” within Hong Kong in regards to several levels of preservation, nation, city, and transnational. While I truly enjoyed reading this article and found everything discussed as valid and useful information, there was one point that seemed to be overlooked. That is the undeniable increase in population. Throughout history of Hong Kong, every single national event, simultaneously caused a direct relationship to the increase in population. Due to this continual population explosion, Hong Kong was forced to inhabit its residents in a variety and creative development of ways. The most obvious was the increase in modern skyscrapers, making Hong Kong known as the world’s most ‘vertical’ city. This increase in building is a direct relationship to the lack-of space, or ‘disappearance’ of space, on the island of Hong Kong. While my own interpretation is a twist off of Abbas’ intention, I feel that it can apply here, as well. In order to maintain a progressive and changing city, even after the shift back to Chinese sovereignty, Hong Kong continued to thrive in a number of ways and is continually referred to as the international city of China, maintaining connections with the rest of the world, especially through trade. Since I realize that Abbas has more writings on Hong Kong that I’m yet to further dissect, I could presume that this phenomenon is addressed in other readings. Regardless, I believe that it is still valid and worth pointing out, especially in relation to this week’s reading on the variety of housing.
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