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The materials of indigeneity: slate and cement in a Taiwanese indigenous (Paiwan) mountain settlement
No full textThis article considers the implications of the adoption of cement and concrete as building materials in a mountain settlement of the Paiwan, one of the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. The presence of these materials in an indigenous settlement might at first glance be interpreted as a sign of cultural assimilation. This article suggests rather that, by paying close attention to the ways in which locals engage with the changing properties of imported materials in work and daily life, a more complex understanding can be gained of the negotiated relations of power between indigenous people, the state, and market forces, as well as the role of materials in these negotiations. For the Paiwan, creative engagements with foreign materials and their changing properties have, at various moments, represented ways of adapting to the pressures to assimilate, or, conversely, resulted in expressions of cultural resilience.</p
Dynamic Houses and Communities at Çatalhöyük: A Building Biography Approach to Prehistoric Social Structure
No full textHouses are rich resources for understanding prehistoric social structure. However, conventional working methods often handle houses as stable entities that reflect the nature of households and other social units. Social groups may be inadvertently rendered static in the process. A biographical understanding, in which the on-going transformation of built space is part of different kinds of human collaboration, allows us to explore the dynamic qualities of past communities. I examine detailed life-histories of four contemporary houses at Çatalhöyük in Central Turkey, using the site's fine stratigraphy to interrogate how furnishings, elaborations and rhythms of burial varied through each building's use-life. These trace shifting practice and performance in relation to built space. Çatalhöyük buildings’ social roles changed dramatically over their lives. The spatial dynamics observed suggest that commensal groups were less stable and less bound to specific houses than in more conventional views of the site, and interacted in unpredictable ways with larger forms of social collaboration. Ultimately, this suggests a more dynamic approach to both houses and social units in the Near East and the archaeology of houses generally.</p
Pigment Use at Neolithic catalhoyuk
No full textThe Neolithic settlement of Çatalhöyük offers an exceptional dataset for studying pigment usage over one-thousand years of the existence of the settlement. The inhabitants produced a rich palette of colors, with pigments applied to objects, in architectural paintings, and for treatment of the dead. This article discusses evidence of pigments at Neolithic Çatalhöyük based on data collected during the twenty-five years of research under the directorship of Ian Hodder (1993–2017).</p
Human occupation of northern India spans the Toba super-eruption ~74,000 years ago
No full textIndia is located at a critical geographic crossroads for understanding the dispersal of Homo sapiens out of Africa and into Asia and Oceania. Here we report evidence for long-term human occupation, spanning the last ~80 thousand years, at the site of Dhaba in the Middle Son River Valley of Central India. An unchanging stone tool industry is found at Dhaba spanning the Toba eruption of ~74 ka (i.e., the Youngest Toba Tuff, YTT) bracketed between ages of 79.6 ± 3.2 and 65.2 ± 3.1 ka, with the introduction of microlithic technology ~48 ka. The lithic industry from Dhaba strongly resembles stone tool assemblages from the African Middle Stone Age (MSA) and Arabia, and the earliest artefacts from Australia, suggesting that it is likely the product of Homo sapiens as they dispersed eastward out of Africa.</p
Deus ex mitigata: Denaturalizing the discursive power of Solar India
No full textPost-Paris Agreement, India is swiftly transitioning to low-carbon electricity generation through solar park development. Despite exceeding emissions reduction targets, many social development claims remain unrealized. This paper addresses the following questions: (1) What discourses do state institutions utilize to justify solar park development in rural spaces? (2) What sociopolitical effects do these discourses have at the local scale? I conducted a critical discourse analysis of technical and policy documents focusing on knowledge production to influence social power and the political economy. I also draw on eight months of fieldwork, including semi-structured interviews of residents, bureaucrats, and solar employees in Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, and New Delhi. This paper argues that solar parks are rationalized via discursive formations of the climate crisis, economic development, and ecological modernization. These discursive formations are stitched together into story-lines and circulated by public and private institutions (Solar India), comprising a “deus ex mitigata,” a deus ex machina set of discursive formations that rationalize greener capital accumulation in neoliberal India that does not address asymmetric power relations. The modalities by which this is accomplished dispossess peasants of land and livelihoods. As such, low-carbon electricity generation does not positively “transform the lives” of residents, a raison d’être for solar park development.</p
Scripting Indian and Chinese urban spatial transformation: Adding new narratives to gentrification and suburbanisation research
No full textThis paper examines the spatial transformation of Indian and Chinese cities with reference to prevailing gentrification and suburbanisation studies. Focusing on urban redevelopment and peripheral extension, the paper highlights how Indian and Chinese urban studies provide extensive analyses of demolition and displacement in urban renewal and redevelopment, peri-urbanisation, and mega urban projects in urban spatial extension. These studies, often developed by paying attention to specific Indian or Chinese urbanisation, add new narratives to gentrification and suburbanisation research and help to enhance our understanding of contemporary urban changes. Thinking about Indian and Chinese urban spatial transformation, these studies highlight that gentrification and suburbanisation are large research fields rather than defined concepts.</p
Playing in the darkness: a study of the transformative theatre-making process of the Shyambazar Blind Opera House
No full textThe article elucidates the theatre-making methodology of Shyambazar Blind Opera House, Kolkata (SBO); a group theatre troupe made up of members of the visually impaired community. The initiative uses theatre as an experimental tool to facilitate personal, social, and cultural development, and is the first of its kind in Bengal. The composite theatrical structure used by the troupe not only empowers the community but also challenges power hierarchies. Thick description, participatory observation and interviews have been employed as ethnographic tools to understand the theatrical methodology employed by Blind Opera, and its application.</p
Outsiders in the periphery: studies of the peripheralisation of low income housing in Ahmedabad and Chennai, India
No full textThe growing emphasis on affordable housing and the sharp increase in its supply in Indian cities over the past two decades is characterised by two features that diminish the inclusive and integrative role of affordable urban housing. The first is the move toward constructing new housing stock rather than upgrading existing stock. Second, most of this new housing, increasingly in the form of multi-storied tenement buildings, is located on urban peripheries in isolated or poorly connected sites. In focusing on the peripheralisation of formal low-income housing, this paper adds a new dimension to studies of peripheral urbanisation in India, which have hitherto focused on high-end speculative developments or informal settlements of the poor. Drawing on mixed-method field studies of four formal low-income settlements in Ahmedabad and Chennai, this paper argues that residents of these settlements experience a multifaceted dynamic of disconnection, not only from the city but also from other peripheral developments, rendering them outsiders in the periphery. Three dynamics of disconnection are studied: first, the allocation of fully built housing units disconnects residents from processes of housing production. Second, spatial dislocation constrains their mobility, both physical and socioeconomic. Third, these two dynamics, combined with substandard infrastructure and housing conditions, alienate residents from the new settlements, and curtail their engagement in processes of place-making or the production of neighbourhoods.</p
The place of performance in a landscape of conquest: Raja Mansingh’s <i>akhārā</i> in Gwalior
No full textIn the forested countryside of Gwalior lie the vestiges of a little-known amphitheatre (akhārā) attributed to Raja Mansingh Tomar (r. 1488–1518). A bastioned rampart encloses the once-vibrant dance arena: a circular stage in the centre, surrounded by orchestral platforms and an elevated viewing gallery. This purpose-built performance space is a unique monumentalized instance of widely-prevalent courtly gatherings, featuring interpretive dance accompanied by music. What makes it most intriguing is the architectural play between inside|outside, between the performance stage and the wilderness landscape. Why then did it make sense to situate a ‘fortified’ amphitheatre amidst forested hills, away from the city? And where does this cultural arena stand in relation to the pressing political concerns of the day, anchored in the very same landscape? This paper examines the performative structure of Mansingh’s akhārā and argues that performance – as evening entertainment, hunting sport and military campaign – occupied a crucial place in Gwalior’s resilience throughout the fifteenth century and its changing perceptions from an infidel’s jungle refuge (mawās) to the axis of a culturally-refined region (sudeśa).</p
Assessment of pedestrians’ travel experience at the religious city of Puri using structural equation modelling
No full textPuri, one of the most sacred sites for Hindus in India, is visited by millions of tourists every year. This paper evaluates the travel experience of pedestrians in Puri. A total of 500 respondents were asked to rate different microscale factors on a five-point Likert scale (1 = very poor and 5 = very good). Received data were analysed using structural equation modelling, which formed four latent constructs such as accessibility, safety, comfort and aesthetics. The results show that pedestrians in Puri are most dissatisfied with the factors related to the comfort construct, followed by accessibility, safety and aesthetics, respectively.</p