Urbanities,
Vol. 3
·
No 2
·
November 2013
© 2013
Urbanities
150
ethnic Uzbek groups in Tashkent. The theoretical focus in this study is on the communication
aspects of collective identifications among the groups in question.
Dr Rano Turaeva-Hoehne
is an Affiliated Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Social
Anthropology in Halle, Germany. She has published her work in peer-reviewed journals, including
Inner Asia, Central Asian Survey, Post-Communist studies, Anthropology of Middle East and
Anthropos
. Her works address such topics as language and identity, citizenship, ethnic relations, state
and society relations among others. Her current research focuses on the principles of regulation of
informal economic activities of Central Asian migrants in Russia.
Name
: Kim Young Jin
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi
Defended:
August 2013,
University of Delhi
Narrating the Landscape of Delhi: An Anthropological Study of Urban Space
This study is aimed at decoding the spaces of Delhi focusing on the street landscapes. The
urban space of Delhi has its own characteristics and, therefore, is proper to study the
interactions of spaces and practices. Theoretically, the study counts on two concepts, or de
Certeau’s
tactical practice
and Lefebvre’s
space
.
I focus on two characteristics in the landscapes of the space. The one is strong
religious colours and the other, non-partitioned spaces. First, the landscapes of Delhi are
characterized by the religious colours that are dyed both by religious rituals and by everyday
practices. People celebrate many kinds of memorial days in the streets. These rituals give
ordinary people several opportunities to get together in the streets, to showcase their artistic
talents, and to express their opinions. It contributes to diversifying the function of
carriageways. Everyday practices also affect the religious colours of landscapes. Usually,
several worship places are located at accessible places in a neighbourhood and get a steady
flow of devotees all day long.
Another characteristic is that the streets are not strictly partitioned as a section to have
a fixed function. Instead, people, vehicles, animals, vegetation are complicatedly mixed in the
spaces. I interpret that it is related to the religious creeds. As for Hinduism, the concept of the
One gives the resilience to the society and encourages people to think positively about the
tension between these two opposing forces. In other words, the concept does not allow several
Western dualisms to pervade easily in the Indian Society. As for Sikhs and Muslims, they
emphasize
sewa
(community duty), congregation prayer, and so on. Their emphasis of
community life or brotherhood prohibits individualism from pervading in the society and their
life from becoming atomization.
Consequently, the urban space is discursive. The discursiveness resembles tactical
everyday practices of ordinary people who belong to different groups. It means that the
moments of space,
the perceived-conceived-lived triad
, are not broken in the space. In the
space, time flows ‘slowly’ as the triad is ‘walking’ together. Sometimes, the slow time is
