Urbanities,
Vol. 3
·
No 2
·
November 2013
© 2013
Urbanities
123
the authors; particularly the concept of ‘built space’ and important works like that of Setha Low
(1995, 2000). In this perspective the internal differentiations of the ‘urban’ space become
important especially in the division of the domestic and the public. Here also one needs to take
into account the ‘urban’ not merely as a cultural phenomenon and ‘way of life’ but also in terms
of its physical structure, architecture, infrastructure and so on. Urban architecture is continuous
with its history and also its economic and political aspects.
The physical dimensions of the city is not separate from its cultural dimensions, for
example living in apartment buildings may affect social life in different ways, depending upon
which part of the world we are talking about. For example, while such living in high rise
buildings may lead to anonymity in a city like New York, in India, even in a metropolitan city
like Delhi, the residents tend to form kinship- and family-like collectivities where sharing and co-
operation and participation in common rituals and festivities is common. But again people who
live in the same apartment complex often tend to reproduce community, class and caste ties that
may set them apart from other groups. An apartment complex, by its very ability to put people in
close physical proximity with each other, may reproduce ‘collectivities’ or exaggerated
anonymity, depending on the context.
Thus one must agree with the authors that ‘new urban research’ must comprehensively
take into account the ‘interactions between economic, political and cultural aspects’, and the
urban situation needs to be contextualized within the larger global, national and state
backgrounds within which they occur. The urban is not a uniformly comprehended space and
there are likely to be greatly differentiated internal divisions. The cognitive aspects of urban life
will thus be conditioned by the platform from which it is being viewed and in the same region
one find have different interpretations and ‘pictures’ of the urban.
With their stimulating essay the authors have initiated a lively debate that
Urbanities
can
carry forward successfully.
References
Channa, V.C. ( 1979).
Caste: Identity and Continuity
. Delhi: B.R. Publishing Corp.
Low, S. (1995). Indigenous Architectural Representations: Mesoamerican and Caribbean
Foundations of the Spanish American Plaza,
American Anthropologist
,
97 (4):748-762
Low, S. (2000).
On the Plaza: The Politics of Public Space and Culture
. Austin: University
of Texas Press.
Mariott, Mc Kim (ed.) (1955).
Village India: Studies in the Little Community
. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Mines, M. (2002). Memorializing the Self: The Autobiographical Will and Testament of
Narayana G. Ch. (2002). Madras City, 1915. In D. P Mines and S. Lamb (eds).
Mines, D. P and Lamb, S. (eds). (2002).
Everyday life in South Asia
, Bloomington: Indiana
University Press.
