In-Person Panel PS1.2

Borders and Boundaries: Urban Infrastructures and Environmental Conservation

Unban (un)commoning beneath transport infrastructures in Chongqing, China 

Qiwei Peng 

In Asia, the diversity of the urban commons is being challenged by the trend towards homogenization through global capitalism expansion. This presentation focuses on Chongqing, a southwestern Chinese city with mountainous terrain. On the one hand, flyovers here are used to break geographical barriers and facilitate the flow of capital investment, resources, and labour. On the other hand, in Chongqing, those elevated transport infrastructures intersect with urban riverside seasonal green spaces called the "pure land" by locals, becoming an integral part of the urban everyday life. The presentation argues that certain flyovers and their surrounding environment in Chongqing reflect a local pragmatism to explore the self-regulation of urban (un)commoning that goes beyond top-down urban planning. Through ethnographic methods, this presentation aims to demonstrate that local spontaneous everyday practices and social relations in urban (un)commoning play critical roles during these flyovers transforming as social infrastructures. It also will argue how these social processes contribute to urban spatial justice and urban resilience in the face of seasonal changes. Based on that, the presentation proposes to provide inspiration for other Asian countries on how to treat and redefine the value of connections between urban commons with urban infrastructures.

Urban infrastructural borders: Reproducing divides through railway infrastructure in Guwahati, Northeast India 

Prerona Das 

The partition of India created a ripple effect of bordering across time and space which often become manifest in the contemporary urban spaces of the country. In this paper I explore the reproduction of India’s partition and the consequent immigration debates in the state of Assam within local urban spaces of Guwahati, the largest city in Northeast India. The region of Northeast India has long been administered as a geopolitical frontier between South, Southeast and East Asia, where multiple borders have been drawn and re-drawn along the lines of religion, ethnicity, race, language and class, producing a layered politics of exclusion. In the cities of the frontier region, this peculiar politics of exclusion is often reproduced through dividing urban infrastructure. Engaging with the materialities and imaginaries of dividing infrastructure in the locality of Silpukhuri in the frontier city of Guwahati, I argue that urban spaces in the frontier region are where the most concentrated experiences of bordering are located. The paper looks at railway infrastructure, which in itself is a legacy of the empire, and analyses how it reinforces boundaries that are not only material, but imagined reinforcing religious, linguistic, ethnic and class divides.

Can Transboundary Protected Areas work in the Himalaya? 

Alexander Davis 

The Himalaya is one of the world’s most delicate and crucial environmental regions. It currently suffers from an entanglement of border conflicts, geopolitical tensions, unchecked development projects, and the large-scale damming of its rivers, all while warming at twice global averages. There are very limited international environmental protection agreements that cover the region. There are, however, some bright spots of transboundary cooperation. Most of what does exist has been brought about through the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). This paper offers a preliminary examination of the likelihood that the use of Transboundary Protected Areas (TBPAs) can offer solutions to the Himalaya’s many pressing environmental challenges. Risks with TBPAs include an increase in state attention, regulation and control of environmental regions. They do not tend to fully diffuse sovereignty claims. At worst, they can contribute to the dispossession of Indigenous communities. At best, though, there is evidence that they can cool down geopolitical tensions. By looking at the limited successes of TBPAs in the Himalaya, such as The Kailash Sacred Landscape Conservation and Development Initiative (KSLCDI), The Kangchenjunga Landscape Conservation and Development Initiative (KLCDI), this paper investigates the potential for their broader use in the Himalaya.

Potential Nature-based Solutions to Climate Change: The Case of the Vetiver Grass Nurseries, Seawalls, and Erosion Hedges of Tabaco City Albay, Philippines

Marco Stefan B. Lagman

Tabaco City in Albay, Philippines is located in a region of the country that receives an annual average of 3-5 typhoons and an inordinate amount of rainfall. Such conditions make its settlements and island residents very susceptible to being harmed by powerful storm surges and constant yet erosive waves. Instead of relying on traditional protective infrastructure made of expensive concrete and steel, its city government and its concerned citizens have turned to the use of nursery-raised vetiver grass combined with cost effective materials to build vetiver grass seawalls and hedges that seek to protect coastal Tabaquenos in times of extreme weather. This paper seeks to highlight the conditions that led Tabaco to seek nature-based solutions to their disaster risk reduction and climate change concerns while also pointing out the challenges they face in sustaining such efforts.