I have chosen this topic for the following reasons. On the one hand it is related to a recent project of this house (IGNCA) on a study into rural India
(Prof. B. N. Saraswati) <1>. On the other hand I have prepared a paper with similar
outlooks for an architectural conference focussed on urban housing for the poor (Rizvi College, Mumbai). The paper critically maintains that architects planning for the
urban poor should know their "clients" better: what is their rural culture, what
brought them into the city, why do they live under these conditions?
Further, my subject is influenced by a new publication on Indian architecture partly
written by close friends of mine (Jon Lang, Miki and Madhavi Desai: Architecture
and Independence. The search for Identity; India 1880-1980). It deals with developments
of Indian architecture between colonial impacts and independence. The dichotomy of urban
and rural is an important one. What is Indian architecture proper? Its urban history
being to a great deal imposed from outside, is it then to be found in the village
world of its rural areas?
But, here I would like to deal with the subject of urban dichotomy in a wider context
of cultural theory, history and anthropology. In this sense the title is an expression
with which we can cover not only the whole of urban culture, but also critically
hints as to how our present humanities describe this cultural history of man.
Basically, the urban worldview is a product of urban historical methods supported
essentially by urban history. Quantitatively and spatially (or geographically) the
urban nuclear areas are only a fragment of the rural conditions spread over the habitable
zones of the world. But this fragmentary urban population projects and diffuses its
own values over wider rural areas under its control. This is valid on the level of
individual cities, as well as capitals and their national domains. What would happen
if we became aware that urban values are methodologically conditioned? Using anthropological
methods against the narrow urban historisms, wouId we discover the virtual constructs
with which urban values are kept up?
Maybe we should add some notes on the word dichotomy here. It implies or designates
a division into two opposing groups or parts. The focus is on the antagonistic or
complementary relation. A framing unit is implied. Thus the word has a methodological
aspect. The view is not focussed analytically on the city or the rural condition, but
on the relational aspect, the opposites, complementaries, mutual conditioning. Temporally
the expression "urban rural dichotomy" covers the whole history of the city.
The term rural is taken in the widest sense as the non urban geography past and present.
Tribal societies and the world of agrarian villages as we know them from ethnology
or folklore, are included as well as, throughout history, those human settlements
that were eccentric in regard to urban nuclei, and formed the non urban geography of early and later empires until today.
It is evident, that the term rural covers an enormous surface of the globe, past and
present. Quantatively the rural population was always and still is the large majority
of the world's population. The urban mentality always considered its own culture
as higher, and saw the rural as human resource for its own goals. This reflects also in science.
Folklore studies are not considered as important in the domain of present-day humanities. The ethnologist's interests are still considered close to exotic, not
relevant to our own worldview! This apriori value element is also seen in methods
and results.
The rural component supporting
urban history in each phase (grey rectangles) is basically neglected. However, the
cultural ethno-(pre-) history used here as a method takes the rural basis of each phase
into consideration. This corresponds to newer trends in history to relate historical
sources to their tectonic and geographic environment. In these books, mostly geographical atlases and maps are used, indicating the territorial and geographical components
of history. Historians have used similar methods e.g. in European Middle Ages calling
their approach "history from below". But the method was, as far as I know, not applied systematically in the cross cultural or anthropological context. Note that the "structural
history" used here is described in Wernhart 1981. In this short paper we will concentrate
on the first stage of Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia (1) which is most important as a transitional field between rural and urban, but the dichotomies of the
later phases are similar. However with increasing importance of script, the interurban
diffusion increases, the cultural relations with the rural are devalued and are thus
decreasing.
It is evident, if we use the anthropological method in its widest sense, that is,
related to man's past and present, the historic view becomes too narrow. It always
remains within a cultural domain formed by its urban history. It is definitely urbanely
ethnocentric. The anthropological outlook questions this view. Not only for its ethnocentrism,
but also in regard to its discontinuous interpretation of early sources.
In the following we will discuss these two worldviews, the urban and the rural as
a dichotomy by showing their essential structural differences.
Fig. 2a (upper part of following plate) shows three phases of our discussion. In a first step [A] we will outline
basic characteristics of the urban world view, past and present. These characteristics
are then [B] contrasted with basic characteristics of the rural worldview, pre- and
para-urban. Finally, in a third step (C) indicators are mentioned which make it plausible
that the urban characteristics had developed originally from rural conditions.
Fig. 2b (lower and main part of plate) lists in columns of 'urban' and 'rural' seven criteria (1 - 7) and the way they are interpreted in the urban and rural domains. The titles of the discussions will follow the numbers of the listed criteria.
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