URBANCONSULTATIONJUNE2012 BELIEVINGINTHECITY

Dr.AndrewSmith
UniversityofGlasgow,SchoolofSocialandPolitical Science

CitiesandtheLegacyofEmpire

AndrewSmith

CitiesandtheLegacyofEmpire

CitiesandtheLegacyofEmpire
Pleasealsodownloadtheaccompanyingpowerpoint. Introduction PerhapsIcanstartwithsomeimages[PP1].ThisisagroupofSenegaleseweaverswhowerebrought toGlasgowaspartofthe1911ScottishExhibitionofNationalHistory,ArtandIndustrywhichwas held in Kelvingrove Park. The weavers were housed in what was called the West African Village [PP2],whichwassituatedatthefarendofthepark(nearGibsonStreet)[PP3].Thispositioningis significant and is in keeping with the positioning of similar exhibits of peoples gathered from colonisedcountriesintheworldfairsandexpositionswhichweresuchaprominentpartofemerging formsofmassentertainmentinthisperiod.Asyoucansee,theWestAfricanvillageisplacedata deliberatedistancefromthePalacesofHistoryandArtwhichwerethecentreofthehighcultural sectionsoftheexhibition;rather,thevillagewasplacedalongsidetheJoyHouse,theJoyWheel, theRifleRangeandtheMountainSlide.Whatthismakesclear,ofcourse,isthatthepresenceof liveAfricanswasclearlyintendedtoserveprimarilyasaformofvisualentertainmentforthenearly 10millionpayingvisitorswhocametotheevent. Thisisjustoneexampleofsomethingwhichhasbeenrecognisedindiscussionsofimperialhistoryin thesocialsciencesandthehumanitiesforsometimenow,andmostobviouslysincethepublication of Edward Saids pioneering work Orientalism. That is to say, the fact that modern European imperialismentailednotjusteconomicimperatives,notjustquestionsofgeopoliticalstrategy,but also, of course, new ways of understanding and imagining the world and its defining human relationships.HowevermuchtheextensionofEuropeanimperialcontrolwasdrivenbythesearch fornewmarketsornewsourcesofrawmaterialitalsorequiredawaycomprehendingandordering the relationships with those Europeans encountered; it required a way of seeing the world,

UrbanConsultationJune2012BelievingintheCity

AndrewSmith

AndrewSmith

CitiesandtheLegacyofEmpire

moreover,thatservedtojustifythepracticesthatempireinvolved.AndwhatSaidfamouslytraced was the extent to which, especially from the C19th onwards, that way of imagining history and identity,and therelationshipsbetweenEuropeandthose that Europeansencountered elsewhere, came to have a relatively stable and systematic character. Indeed, in that period empire became increasingly,ascanbewitnessedhere,apublicproject.Aprojectwithwhichthegrowingworking classwasinvitedtoassociateitself,sothattheimplicitmessageofeventssuchasthiswasthatthe new, urban working population should understand itself as occupying a particular, relatively privilegedpositionintheworldorderthatempirecreated. Butsomethingelseisalsonoticeablehere.TheWestAfricanswhowerebroughttoliveandworkin KelvingroveParkliketheLaplandersand,revealingly,theScottishHighlanders[PP4]whowere setupbesidethemwererepresentedaslivingauthenticlivesinauthenticvillages(oraclachan in the case of the Highlanders). And this is a reminder that what was called into play in this representationofthingswerenotjustthedynamicsandidentitiesconstitutedbyempire,butalso thedynamicsandidentitiesconstitutedbyurbanisation.So,inwhathasbeencalledtheimaginative geography of popular imperialism, this new way of conceiving of oneself and ones place in the world, the city takes on a particular symbolic authority. The paying visitor is invited to think of themselvesnotjustasapartoftheempirebut,inthesameinstant,aspartofanurbanmodernity whichcouldnowlookbackupontheruralassomethingthatbelongedeithertoitsownpast(asin the Highland Clachan), or as something that characterised the lives of the exotic peoples of the colonies who were, of course, thereby condemned for having fallen into the historical mire of backwardness, from which the only possible rescue could be provided by the benevolent hand of Europeanprogress.

UrbanConsultationJune2012BelievingintheCity

AndrewSmith

AndrewSmith

CitiesandtheLegacyofEmpire

So,thisiswhatIwanttotakeasmycue.Imnot,Ihavetoadmit,anurbanistoraspecialistinwriting aboutthecityparticularly.ButforthoseofuslivingintheGlobalNorth,itseemstomethatAnthony Kingisrightinurgingustolearntoseeourcitiesfromtheoutside,toreflectonthewaysinwhich those cities have been shaped by the histories of empire. Not as a merely historical exercise althoughmyfocushereislargelyhistoricalbutasawayofopeningupcriticalreflectionaboutthe hereandnow.Onecanalsoaskthisquestiontheotherwayaround:aretheirparticularaffinities,a particularfit,betweenthecharacteristicconsequencesofurbanexperience,ontheonehand,and the ways of understanding place, history and identity which were associated with European imperialism, on the other? These are the kinds of question that I want just try to tease away at a littlebithere. SkatingonThinSurfaces ThemenandwomenwhowererequiredtositandworkintheirvillagesinKelvingrovePark,[PP5], justliketheircounterpartsinsimilareventsinParis,orSt.Louis,orLondon,were,ofcourse,above all,theretobelookedat.Theywerepartofatraditionofspectacularpublicentertainmentinthe C19th and early C20th which regularly featured the peoples, animals, or material cultures of the colonized world and which, according to one observer at the early C20th Colonial Exposition in Marseilles must attract the most sceptical and fascinate the blas. Well, the term blas is an interesting one in this context, because it is associated most famously with the great German sociologist Georg Simmel who, in a famous essay on the city, described urban life as posing a particular challenge for those engulfed by it. The sheer intensity and multiplicity of events in the metropolis,accordingtoSimmel,meansthateverywalkdownthecitystreetpresentsapotentially disorientating psychological experience, not just because cities intensify sensory stimulation, but

UrbanConsultationJune2012BelievingintheCity

AndrewSmith

AndrewSmith

CitiesandtheLegacyofEmpire

because they threaten our ability to make sense of things at all; to coherently map out and understandthehistoriesortherelationshipsofthethingsweencounter. Thissituationwasnotjustafunctionofthecityperse,accordingtoSimmel,itwascruciallya function of the fact that urban life is characterised, more than any previous form of human existence, by the thoroughgoing domination of a money economy. The effects of this are, as a wholehostofwritersonthecityhaveargued,profoundlydoubleedged;liberatoryinonerespect, anddeadeninginothers.ForSimmelonekeyconsequenceisthatthosewholiveintheurbanmoney economyhavetolearntodifferentiate,tojudge,andtorespondtothingsonlyintheirquantitative dimensions:howmany,howmuch?Money,withallitscolorlessnessandindifference,becomesthe commondenominatorofallvalues;irreparablyithollowsoutthecoreofthings,theirindividuality, theirspecificvalue,andtheirincomparability.RobertPark,oneofthefoundersofurbansociology inAmericasaid,inthisrespect,thattheartoflife[inthecitybecomes]reducedtoskatingonthin surfaces.Simmel,forhispart,calledtheresultingandcharacteristicattitudeofcitylife:theblas attitude. Inthatrespect,ofcourse,thegreatimperialexhibitionsandtheirdisplays,livingandotherwise,far from being a cure for the blas attitude (as the brochures and advertisers and journalists suggested), were perfect expressions of that attitude. They staged encounters which were absolutelycharacteristicofaworldinwardlyconformedtotheurbanmoneyeconomy.Encounters with people stripped of any qualitative dimensions, stripped of individual character, of history or capacity for development; the villagers were there as types. Indeed, more accurately, they were theretobeconsumed,notjustinthesensethatthevisitorpaidtoseethem,butinthesensethat theyweredevoidofanythingthatmightdefinetheirspecificityaspeople(theirincomparability,as

UrbanConsultationJune2012BelievingintheCity

AndrewSmith

AndrewSmith

CitiesandtheLegacyofEmpire

Simmelputit).Inshort,theywerepresentedintheimageofthings,asthingsareencounteredinthe market. This is, after all, what Simmel is saying, at its most unsettling; the urban money economy drillsustorespondtootherhumanbeings,notwithaconcernfortheirparticularhumanorsocial qualities,butlikecommodities:typesofthings,whichcanbeputintocategories,whichareinsome sense interchangeable and which are used up in our encounter with them. The life of the living exhibits before or beyond the moment of the paying visitors encounter with them is not to be thoughtof. Wecanteasilyrecoverthevoiceswhichwouldgiveexpressiontotheexperiencesofthemenand women who were part of those displays. But we can perhaps hear something of those voices, by proxy,inthegreat,poeticaccountofhisencounterwithEuropeanracismwhichwaswritten(alittle laterintheC20th)by FrantzFanon,inwhich he describeswhat mightbe calledthe experienceof becomingblack.AndwhatFanon[PP6]triestocaptureinhisaccountaretheseriesofmomentsin which,hesays,blacknesswasfixeduponhim.And,tellingly,thosemomentsalltakeplaceinthecity, onthestreet,suchaswhenhepassesamotherandheryoungson,andthesonlooksupandsays: Lookmother,anegro.Ofcourse,thatterm,withallofitsinvidiousconnotations,wouldnotexist historically without European imperialism. At the same time, however, what Fanon goes on to describe is how this term stole from him any sense of individuality [] specific value [] incomparability (all those things that Simmel mentions as causalities of urban social relations). PreciselyinsofarasthiswasatermwhichfixedFanonasathingwhoseexistencewasdefinedbythe gazeoftheotherLookmother,anegroitisatermwhoseforcereliesonthatwayoflookingat eachotherinwhichwearetutoredbythemoneyeconomy.Fanonsinitialresponse,hetells,wasto trytoescapethegaze.Islipintocorners,Iremainsilent,Istriveforanonymity,forinvisibility.Look, Iwillaccept[anything],aslongasnoonenoticesme!

UrbanConsultationJune2012BelievingintheCity

AndrewSmith

AndrewSmith
CosmopolisandCrisis

CitiesandtheLegacyofEmpire

ThekindofexpositionswithwhichIbeganwere,ofcourse,intendednotjustasentertainmentbut alsoasassertionsofpower,andofapowerwhichreliedpreciselyontheauthorityofthegazewhich Fanondescribes,writlarge.AscitiessuchasLondonorGlasgowcameinthisperiodtobedefinedby theirrelationshiptoempire,akeyexpressionofthatimperialidentitywastheabilityofsuchplaces tobringtheworldtothemandtolayitoutfordisplay.VisittheEmpire...byLondonsUnderground [PP7], as this is proclaimed in an indicative poster from 1932. Another great German sociologist Walter Benjamin, with typical insight, noted this about the worlds fairs, they were evidence of a persistent endeavour to close up the space of existence, he said, precisely because what they promisedwasthatherewereallthekingdomsoftheworldlaidoutinamomentoftime,toborrow a phrase. This was an assertion of power perfectly suited to empire, of course, because empire is ultimately about the control of space. But it was also, simultaneously, the triumphalism of the market, which had overcome the historically specific, individual, characterful, changing nature of peopleandthings,sothatthesecouldnowbeseeninthesegreatdisplaysassomanycommodities merelyaccumulated.Inatleastoneofthegreatgreenhousesinwhichtheseexpositionswereoften housed,followingthemodelofCrystalPalace,aninitialplanhadindeedbeentointroduceclimatic zonesthatwouldreplicateallpartsoftheworld,andintothosezones,introducelivingspecimensof humankind who would settle and reproduce themselves in perpetuity so that here in the metropolitanheartlandofempire,historywouldbefinallywoundupanddoneawaywith. Inpractice,ofcourse,thatdreamoftheimperialcompletionofhistoryhasalwaysprovedafalseone and one that was beset, even in this high period of European empire building, by a profound uneasiness.Therewereallkindsofreasonsforthatuneasiness,butonekeypointwasthatthevery

UrbanConsultationJune2012BelievingintheCity

AndrewSmith

AndrewSmith

CitiesandtheLegacyofEmpire

cosmopolitanism which the imperial metropolis here [PP7] used as evidence of its centrality, also changeditfromtheinside.Theseexpositionsimaginedacosmopolitanisminwhichthepeoplesof the empire could be gathered in, placed in their neatly defined racial or cultural boxes, within an unchanging or at least stable order. But beneath that vision of the neatly managed imperial cosmopolis, there was the other messy, hybrid cosmopolis: the real, ongoing meeting and interactionofpeoplesfromallacrosstheglobe.Themovementsoftrade,labour,armsandideason which empire relied, and which were always routed in some respects through its great cities, continuallydestabilisedtheveryconceptionsofidentityandofdifferencewhichimperialauthority required.Henceempirewasalways,inthisregard,aprojecthauntedbyambiguity,andanambiguity feltmostespeciallyandmostkeenlywithintheimperialmetropolisitself.Here,Ithink,RobertPark, inhisfamousessayonthecityhasitratherbetterthanSimmel;thecityisnotjustacontextinwhich the blas attitude is triumphant, it is also a context in which newness emerges; it is a place of encounters and interactions which can bring together things which were otherwise apart. And, as was often the case in the context of empire, this could mean the coming together of peoples, movements,histories,whichthoseinauthoritywantedtokeepseparate[PP8]. So we might talk here of a disordered cosmopolitanism, one that was born of the double consciousness of those people who were required to live across and between the categories that themodernityestablished.Thisis,perhaps,whatSimmeldidnotgrasp;thatcities,preciselybecause they are the preeminent sites of these crossings and recrossings of the modern era, especially thosebornofempiresitesofmigrations,sitesofexileareoftenthecontextsinwhicharetobe foundmenandwomenwhoarerequiredbytheveryconditionsoftheirlives,nottoretreatintoa blas attitude, but to consciously reflect on the world in which they live and how it operates and

UrbanConsultationJune2012BelievingintheCity

AndrewSmith

AndrewSmith

CitiesandtheLegacyofEmpire

who can therefore can bring a particularly critical light to bear on that worlds understanding of itself. This is the argument of W.E.B. du Bois [PP8], for a long time overlooked as the founder of urban sociology in America (because he was AfricanAmerican). Du Bois specifically talked about the experience of those living in the black communities [PP9] which grew up in the Northern cities of America during the era of segregation, subject to all kinds of exclusions. The consequence of that experience,asheputit,wasthatblackmenandwomeninAmericawerecompelledtoforeverfeel their twoness, that they could never assume themselves to be simply and unproblematically American.Thatmeantallkindsofsufferingofcourse.ButduBoisinsistedthatthiswasnotall;the otherconsequenceofthiswasthatthosesamemenandwomenweregiftedwhathecalledaform ofsecondsight,acritical,reflectiveperspectiveonsociallifewhichmainstreamAmericahadlittle incentivetocultivateandeveryincentivetosmother. In any case, the consequence, in the context of imperial cities such as London and Paris was that cosmopolitanism became a deeply equivocal term; on the one hand, it implied a claim about imperial status, and those cities and their most prominent buildings and features were often deliberatelyremadesoastoendorsetheclaimthatherewerethenewcapitalsoftheworld.Onthe other hand, cosmopolitanism was also the perceived threat; the lingering fear that by becoming a capitaloftheworld,theimperialcityforfeiteditsownidentity.OswaldSpenglerinhisfamous,very conservative prediction of the decline of the West, writing about the fate of the great European imperialcities,saysexactlythis:ThestonecolossusCosmopolisstandsattheendofthelifescourse ofeverygreatculture.

UrbanConsultationJune2012BelievingintheCity

AndrewSmith

AndrewSmith

CitiesandtheLegacyofEmpire

Inthisway,imperialauthorityalwaysoscillatedbetweenhubrisandparanoia,andinparticularthe fearthattheverythingthatdemonstratedimperialpower,whichwasitsabilitytobringtheworldto itself,wouldprovetobetheundoingofitself.Andinthecontextofthatparanoia,aratherdifferent archetypeofthecityissummonedup;suddenlytheimperialcityisimaginedasanarmedcamp,a walled garrison under siege. At the start of Scouting for Boys, BadenPowell [PP11], writing in the context of the postBoer war fears about the longterm vitality of the British empire, specifically beginsbyencouraginghisyoungreaderstoimaginethemselveslivingintownsandcitiesperpetually besieged,repeatingtheexperienceofMafekingeveryday,andinternalisingitsothatitbecomesa stateofcontinualreadinesstodefendtheempireagainstenemieswhoarenolongeroutthereon thefrontier,butalreadyhere,onourcitystreetsandallaroundus.Iftheenemywerefiringdown thisstreet,andIweretoaskyoutotakeamessageacrosstoahouseontheotherside,wouldyou doit?,heaskshisyoungreaders,rhetorically. PostcolonialCities This is, I think, where I would try, briefly, to bring these mostly historical reflections back to the present.Weliveinwhatcanreasonablybecalledapostcolonialera,anditdoesnotseemlikelythat eventhemostdominantglobalpowerwould,intheconceivablefuture,seektoacquirepermanent colonialterritories.Whetherweliveinapostimperialeraisanentirelydifferentquestionandone towhich,itseemstome,wecanonlypossiblyrespondinthenegative.Insayingthis,Imnotjust thinkingofthevariousformsofmilitaryandeconomicauthoritywhichpowerfulnationscontinueto wield, themselves or through proxies, over less powerful nations. I also mean that the ways of thinkingwhichIvebeendescribing,whichwereproductsofthehighageofEuropeanempireshave notevaporatedalongwiththoseempires.IfthoseofuslivingintheWestaregenuinelytolearnto

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AndrewSmith

AndrewSmith

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lookatourcitiesfromtheoutsideweneedtograpplewiththecontinuingculturallegacyofthose waysofunderstandingandimaginingourselvesandothers. That might require us, most obviously, to reflect on how the histories of our cities, and their relationshiptoempire,istold.CertainlyinGlasgow,itseemstome,thefactthatthecitywasnotin itselfagreatcentreoftheslavetrade,alliedtothecomplexityofScotlandsrelationshiptoBritish imperialismmorewidely,hasmeantthattherehasbeenlittleconcertedpublicconsiderationonthe extent to which, for example, slave labour was the basis of so many of the great private fortunes that were made in the city, and the basis of the citys modern expansion as a whole. The famous overpainted absence in the shadows of the portrait of John Glassford, one of the citys C18th tobaccolords,stillremainstobefaced[PP12]bothasaquestionofmoralresponsibility,butalsoin thesensethatasystematicaccountofhowthecityhasbeenshapedbyitsconnectionstoempire hasyettobewritten. One could make a start certainly, by working back from the monumental artefacts of the citys existingspaceandbyusingthemtoopenupacriticalreinterpretationofthecityspast:[PP13]the statue of Thomas Carlyle, in Kelvingrove Park, for example, is the statue of a man who, amongst many other things, was the author of the rabidly antiabolitionist Occasional Discourse on the Nigger Question; Lord Roberts [PP14] sitting proudly up by Park Circus, was the young man who wrotehomehappilytohismotherdescribingtheexcitementofblowingIndiansfromthemouthsof canonsinretributionfortheeventsof1857;andthisgreatpubliccitybuilding[PP15]theGallery of Modern Art is, of course, the renovated townhouse of William Cunninghame, another of the tobacco Lords. Walter Benjamin, who I mentioned earlier, famously suggested that There has never been a document of culture which is not simultaneously one of barbarism. In saying that

UrbanConsultationJune2012BelievingintheCity

AndrewSmith

AndrewSmith

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Benjamin was seeking to jolt what he saw as the standard mode of historical thinking among bourgeoishistorians,whichwastorepresentthehistoryofmodernityasaunbrokenpathtowards progress;inthefaceofthatstory,Benjaminsaid,wehavetocultivatethecriticalhabitofbrushing history against the grain, of seeking out the hidden complicities and the paintedout connections betweenplacesandpeopleswhichareinconvenientforthathistoricalstory.Benjamindidntsaythis becausehewasinterestedincultivatingguiltyconsciences,butbecausewhatthatprocessrequired was a different, more critical engagement with the world as it was encountered in the present. It seems to me that the task of brushing Glasgows civic history against the grain remains largely undone. And if brushing history against the grain requires us to think about how the present is shaped in surreptitious ways by the past, I think we also need to reflect on how the legacies of empire continuetoinflectoururbanlivesintheirmoremundaneaspects.Thegreatfindecycleexpositions with which we started were, in one sense, as Ive argued, expressions of an emerging mass consumerism.Thereis,in thatrespect,adirectlineagebetweenthoseexpositions[PP16] andthe mallsandtheprecinctsofourcontemporarycities.Notleastbecausethesemallsaretheheirstoa storyfirsttoldbytheexhibitions;theytoopresenttouswithanimageofaworldinwhichhistory hasbeenovercome.Thedesignofthesemalls,inalloftheirsleeknessandsheen,promisesusthe future,butitisafuturestolenawayintheverysameinstant;hereisthefuture,theysay,butthe future is what is already here. Just as with the accumulation of imperial commodities in the great exhibitions, they represent a world in which change is no longer imaginable; all that remains is surrendertothefurtheraccumulationofthings.

UrbanConsultationJune2012BelievingintheCity

AndrewSmith

AndrewSmith

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Ofcourse,intheC19thexhibitions,thepeopleandmaterialgatheredfromthecolonialworldhad thetangofthegenuinelyunfamiliaraboutthem.Thatsenseofothernesscouldfitverywellwith colonialracism,ofcourse,butitalsoharbouredsomethingelse,Ithink;theappealoftheexoticwas, atleastinpart,thatit couldspeaktoapopularlongingforaworldinwhichsomethingdifferent was imaginable. Of course the formal arrangement of the exhibitions, with their great visual and intellectualschemesoforder,toldadifferentstory;astoryinwhicheverythingwasputsafelyinits place.Buttheideaoftheexoticstillopenedaimaginativecrack,forthosewhoselivesmightlead themtodesirethis,toadifferentworld.Bycontrast,inthecontemporarycontext,thefactthatwe knowthatincitiesacrosstheglobe[PP17and18],thesamekindsofmallsarefilledwiththesame kinds of shops, means that little is left even of that profoundly doubleedged exoticism. Once difference is simply something that one buys, then it ceases to be, in any significance sense, differencethatwasSimmelspointabouttheeffectsoftheurbanmoneyeconomy;itappearsto bringtheworldsricheswithinreach,butatthesametimeithollowsoutthedistinctivequalitiesand meaningfulnessofthingsinthemselves. Butthedeadeninghandofthemoneyeconomyis,ofcourse,onlyapartofthehistoricalstory.What the postcolonial era has brought with it as well is an extraordinary expansion of that disordered cosmopolitanismwhichtheproponentsofEuropeanimperialismalwaysfeared;thegreatwavesof postcolonialmigration,andthevastlyexpandedandacceleratedmeansofcommunicationbetween differentplacesintheworld,haveutterlychangedthecontextinwhichwegoaboutimaginingand understanding ourselves and our relations with others. One response to these changes is the continual summoning up by both the state and by sections of the media, of the idea of an all pervasive, decentred threat to our way of life, a threat presented as being, terrifyingly, everywhere and nowhere at once. This is very obviously a postcolonial restaging of the Baden

UrbanConsultationJune2012BelievingintheCity

AndrewSmith

AndrewSmith

CitiesandtheLegacyofEmpire

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Powellsimperialparanoia,whichIdescribedamomentago.Thereisalsothecontinued,desperate reassertion of a form of order through racism and ideas of irreconcilable cultural difference; the ideaofraceanditssynonymscontinuetoprovethemostawfulintellectuallegacyoftheEuropean empires. But despite that there is also a kind of hope it seems to me. One effect of the disordered cosmopolitanismofthepostcolonialworldmaybethatthesecondsightwhichduBoisdescribedas the peculiar gift of those who were marginal, may start to become a rather more common imaginativecurrency.Inotherwords,thehopewouldbethatweareallcompelledtostartfeeling ourtwoness,compelledtorecognisethatnoneofusisjustthisonething,thisoneidentity,thisone home,thisoneculture;rather,thatweareinescapably,ineradicablyapartofoneanother.Andto starttofeellikethat,tostrivetofeellikethat,wouldalso,ofcourse,beaguardagainst,notjustthe divisive intellectual legacies of empire, but also the dehumanising effects of the urban money economythatSimmeldescribed.

UrbanConsultationJune2012BelievingintheCity

AndrewSmith

URBANCONSULTATIONJUNE2012 BELIEVINGINTHECITY
AndrewSmith
UniversityofGlasgow,SchoolofSocialandPolitical Science

CitiesandtheLegacyofEmpire