Spatial Reconfigurations and New Social Formations The Contemporary Urban Context of Kerala Mathew Akkanad Varghese Dissertation for the degree philosophiae doctor (PhD) at the University of Bergen 2012 2 3 Acknowledgements The World Bank had already ‘decided’ that the state of Kerala is the second best investment friendly zone within the country by the time this fieldwork began. There has been a flurry of activities since then, the cumulative effect of which was the materialisation of an urban frame with which this enquiry started off in 2007. Five years on, one starts hearing of ‘Emerging Kerala’, an investors’ meeting for which the whole city (Kochi) is urgently getting spruced up. As the organisers have put forth, this is the newest way to make global connections/commitments. Beyond such rhetoric and suspending the full stops in the present thesis, I could say that another urban phase may well be emerging, and in the process assembling some of the most serious issues that people will grapple with in years to come. So the larger work continues. And the present thesis is a punctuation, the reaching of which was by way of a line of helping hands. I will always be thankful or happy about them whenever a problem could be generated, situations described or a few more avenues of debate or enquiry opened. I should start with my supervisor Bruce Kapferer, who has always been a mixed machine of encouragement and critical interludes and who, with his immense schooling in ethnography has guided the anthropology novitiate. There are those who practically directed me into the specifics of some of the regions and processes: Cherai Ramdas, Roy Chetan, Mathai, Abdullah, Bhaskaran Elayidom, Yakobchaachan, Yohannannchaachan, O T Thomas, Ramakrishna Warrier, Philomena, Saju, Jayan, Chitra, Ferose, Jose Mattathil, Johnappa, K J Sohan, Wilson Isaac, Ron’s family, and Sunthikunjamma’s family; without whom the work would have been impossible and impractical. I want to specially mention Anoop Vellani (Anoop) for always being there not only as a friend, but giving me much needed information, directing me to issues, as well as being a sounding board throughout this work. 4 There were those who helped me take certain directions during the fieldwork with their academic insights, perspectives and suggestions: Rajan Gurukkal, K V Kunhikrishnan, Abhilash Thadathil, Stanly Johny, Rajesh Ravi, Subin Dennis, Joe Varghese, Cheri Jacob, Aju Narayanan, Shiju Sam, Dinesan Vadakkiniyil, Ameet Parameshwaran and Sebastian; all of whom have played significant roles at one point or the other and in varying durations. P J Cherian at the Kerala Council for Historical Research was always there with institutional support as well as personal encouragement. In addition there have been those who added in versions of local histories, lore, as well as political problematic: Karim, Kadar, Aliyar, Chandra Bose, Nobi Patteri, as well as the protestors I met at Edachira and Trade Union offices have been significant pointers to lost tracks. I will for sure miss out more than a few if I start naming families at Pallikkara and Kizhakkambalam as well as people of Thengod, Kakkanad, Njarakkal, and Vypeen or friends from around home and well wishers at U C College, Aluva. Beenakunjamma and Mamma needs to be mentioned for the friendly homes during the work or during the writing. I should not fail to mention Shihab, Nazeer, Ibrahim, Jalil, and Jabbar for transporting me to some of the field zones. Thank you, Sankar Sir and Amruth at KFRI, for setting the ideal intellectual space towards the end of my work and giving me some necessary institutional assistance when most needed. Shifting focus to Norway, I have to say that the University of Bergen’s Department of Anthropology as well as other academic bodies - even when this tropical embodiment was getting bogged down in the darkness of temperate winters - have been of great academic and bureaucratic support as well as encouragement. I should start with my co-supervisor, Judith Kapferer, who has on several occasions opened my eyes to the several urban questions academicians world over grapple with. Pavla Jezkova not only there with exemplary bureaucratic efficiency, but in many ways became a source of security all the way from my MPhil days. She is a responsible manager from 5 whom one has a lot to learn. The academic encouragements of Lief Manger, John Knudsen, Kjetil Fosshagen, Dag Eric, Vigdis Broch-Due, Samson Benzabeb, Alex Manyulov, Thorvald Sirnes, Bjorn Bertelsen as well as Rolf Scott have been valuable at several points. I am extremely happy to mention Rajuchayan, Susan, Jobin, and Roselyn (the family and the home) for keeping me alive when I was away from my beloved in Kerala and for providing me home in every sense. Kristin Paulsen has always been there whenever I needed a friend, a family, institutional directions, or encouragements. I cannot forget the institutional support and friendly gestures of Gro Asse, Yngve Brynjulfsen, Anne Kathrin Thomassen, Ana Cordova, Line Fjellhaug, Marianne, Maria Holmes, and Hanna Skartveit. I thank Lånekassen (The Norwegian State Educational Loan Fund) and the quota programme for the financial support for this work. My friends have always been my most valued asset and this is so all through this work. They have been all around whether at home or in Norway with their suggestions, pep talks, excursions, and warmth. Colbe, Chakki, Shijo, Santoshchetan, Krishnan, Niyas, Siva, Arathi and Sreejith, Shiju and Maya, Mini and Madhu, Dilip Raj, Reuben, Mamtha, Ranjini, Rajesh, Sajeesh and Sitara, Dinesan, Sundar Uncle, Titto and Family, Mathew Uncle and Family, Sajan, Jack and Beena (and Kris), Reshma, Thresy, Swapna, Jayaseelan, Rahman, Baalu, Vijay, Shinda, Rajeev, Jan Eric, Elena Vezzadini, Maria Rodriguez, Dag Eric, Hanna Skartveit, Mihaela, Gaffar, Jessica Mzamu, Siyeda (and friends from Ethiopia) and the many faces I met with, danced with or played billiards with at Fantoft Studentboliger; I have always been happy to be amongst you as well as all who wished me well at Vengoor, Tankachanvelliappas’, Alice Chechis’ and Aluva homes. Finally I know that Appa, Amma, Mol, Srija and Little Mihaela (toto) have experienced everything that I have, if not with more intensity and genuinity, before I put this punctuation in the form of a thesis. Whatever good has come out of it is yours. 6 Abstract Urbanisation and global relationships have had deep historical impacts all along the western coast of Indian peninsula in general and Kerala in particular. It is both inadequate and inaccurate to invest everything ‘urban’ with moments of history like encounters with foreign corporate networks (from the Portuguese to the British). This is not to reduce the importance of such interventions. For instance large scale reorganisations of life as with bureaucratisations during the British phase did indeed give rise to new power equations through active engagements with existing structures. The present urban turn becomes interesting because of the possibility of unprecedented tendencies as well as ruptures to continuities. The immense flexibilities associated with urban ideas as in the case of cities in the making and their disjunctures with the regional patterns are important pointers. Cities now appear as free floating zones of exceptions (as those marking the field locales like Kakkanad or Vallarpadom) that could be cloned anywhere. The state of Kerala with no metropolitan centre, and historically informed by constellations of evenly spaced small towns, does contribute to some of the specific processes. But the contemporary urban processes are thought to provide radical breaks with erstwhile urban phenomena and set the stage to rethink anthropology in a newer historical and ethnographic context. The hypothesis was that the transformations in the modes of production and production of spatialities occurring as/through social formations could be entering a unique paradigm as represented by the current urban context of Kerala. If so the reconfigurations of urban governance may be embodied as everyday subjectivities produced in some of the newly urbanising spaces, transacting in totally new ways to the historicity of everyday life. The idea of 'city' or that of 'urban' has been changing according to historical implications. It would of course become sheer reification to give a universal meaning to 'urban'. So the problematic should be to uncover the changing presentations through history. 7 The modern state of Kerala was carved out of a mosaic of different social and political processes that had trajectories distinct from other parts of the nation state. This is so with the characteristic colonial caste orderings, the reformist tendencies or the large scale land reforms mediated by left wing movements. The welfarist expectations associated with an imagined state or generated out of the all encompassing political public sphere, all unravel in novel equations with neoliberal urban processes/reforms. The possible reconfigurations of state within contemporary global assemblage (neoliberal capitalist, led by extra state actors and state-like bodies) cannot be understood if processes are understood as abstract spatialities that only refracts dichotomies like global/ local, subject/object, structure/agency, etc. What may be important are the ways in which life forms negotiate changing requirements in situations. The global that gets articulated in urban processes is a composite effect of the specific social and cultural negotiations