Re-storying Wastelands
Prologue
Re-Storying Wastelands is a research project that was born out of interest in ostensibly valueless forms of nature. In urban discourse one of the ways to understand nature is by connecting it to the idea of restoration & preservation, which has different global implications based on the meaning, priorities and politics. This raises a question: what are the “urban landscapes” that we restore or preserve are. The answer to that question today is connected to marginalized landscapes inside the city or “wastelands”. In a meticulously planned world, such areas are extremely interesting. One of the reasons why urban ecology became the fascinating discipline that it is today is because of these uncultivated zones to discover (Gandy, 2017).
exploring wastelands
The term wasteland has become widely subsumed within various utilitarian discourses concerning the redevelopment of ostensibly empty or unproductive spaces; the idea encompasses a multiplicity of meanings, material origins, and ecological characteristics. (Gandy, 2013). The word that is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as an “empty or barren area of land” originates via French from the Latin vastus meaning “unoccupied or uncultivated”. The similar word can be found in biblical texts as “weste londe” or “westen” and had religious or spiritual connotations. In early versions of both the Old and New Testaments, westen is a place of bodily danger and hardship: its desolation, its harsh climate, its lack of sustenance, and its menacing creatures are so inimical to human life that merely getting out of the westen alive constitutes a miracle. (Palma, 2014).
In urban studies literature similar landscapes have been referred to as brownfields, badlands, dead zones, terrain vague, post-architectural zones, vacant lands and urban deserts. The more you look for the term wasteland in different discourses, the more divergent meanings start appearing in comparison with English. Moreover, sometimes there are cultural perceptions attached with a term which could also be different from formal understanding. At this point all these meanings suggest that the term “wasteland” is a mere anomaly. To understand these peculiarities, this project started with looking into the meanings of wasteland in different languages across the globe to understand if there are any common characteristics in the linguistic groups.
The global scale of the research and variety of meanings favored interactive mapping as a tool to present the collected data of different languages on a world map. The purpose of this interactive mapping was to see how many groups can be formed on the basis of commonalities of meanings or languages as well as to draw a direct comparison of different languages within the same region or same language in different regions. The map explores 106 different languages. For this project the limits were drawn to the mostly widely spoken language of every country and the word for wasteland in that language. This mapping exercise to an extent helps one to understand various global linguistic perspectives attached to one word.
Instructions:
To compare more than one countries, press “Ctrl” and select countries and on the pop-up menu select “view data (table symbol)” option.
To see only a selected language on the map, in the language groups bar click on any language and select “keep only”.
The mapping above on one hand repeats some of the expected and commonly understood connotations of the term wasteland but on the other hand it shows how the term also has connotations like pristine/virgin soil, empty land, salty marsh, wetland and even backwoods. The map also highlights an aspect of colonization dominating and overpowering the local or regional narrative in case of languages like English, Spanish and Portuguese as they have become the most widely spoken languages in many countries. So according to the mapping exercise the word for wasteland in Spain should be exactly the same in Peru and Equatorial Guinea and have the same connotations while all these three countries are situated in different continents having different cultures, geographies and religion. Even with the common terms, the cultural dynamics and politics play out differently. For example both Persian and Tajiki have the same term for wasteland “bayabaan”. The one in Persian means “haunted wilderness” and also the word has been extensively used in poetry while the same word in Tajiki simply means “desert”.
Understanding wastelands
The interactive mapping exercise served as a good starting point for understanding linguistic peculiarities of the word to an extent but the problem with this way of representation is that it oversimplifies the perception of wasteland in groups of common languages. In almost all the countries of the world there is usually more than one language spoken that are also very different from one another therefore only one language representing the whole country does not do justice to the research. Secondly within similar languages there are many dialects and sometimes cultural appropriation or usage in literature or poetry which also diversifies the meaning of a word. Therefore languages might be the same but the connotations of a word vary a lot from one another like mentioned above with the example of Spanish.
To understand this problem of the linguistic peculiarities without oversimplifying the issue, the project moves ahead by looking into detail meanings of wasteland in three languages native to the researcher: Saraiki, Punjabi and Urdu. The first two are spoken in the Punjab region of Pakistan while the third one is spoken in the whole of Pakistan. Through this analysis the research aims to examine the political and cultural layers associated with the notion of wasteland.
Saraiki
In the “Saraiki” language which is widely spoken in the southern part of Punjab region in Pakistan, the word for wasteland is “سنجھ (Sunjh)” (Brien, 1881) which is synonymous in English to “unearthly state” or in explanation “A haunted place not safe for humans”. In practice the word is usually used by elders to tell children to stay inside after sunset like “Don’t go outside, it’s haunted and desolate out there”. There is some cultural and religious appropriation involved with the usage of the word because in southern culture it is not considered good for humans to get out of their houses after sunsets. This on one hand could be connected to the Islamic belief that angels and demons come down to earth after sunset.
On the other hand there is also a geographical or regional explanation to this concept of wasteland. Since the southern part of Punjab is composed of the Thal desert, therefore various insects, snakes and wild animals come out of sand during night and could attack humans that is why it is unsafe for humans. In most of the languages around the world, wasteland literally translates to desert, but in the actual desert region the wasteland describes a place or situation on conceptual level.
Punjabi
In “Punjabi” language one word used for wasteland is ” برباد زمین (Barbad Zameen)” which means destroyed or ruined land but the word comes from Persian language and is used in instances of a disaster.
Another word used for wasteland is “جوھڑ (Johard)” which translates to English as “swamp”. Punjab is regarded as the land of five rivers, therefore in many river deltas, swamp formations are quite usual and these swamps were not suitable for any productive purposes like agriculture, construction or even walking over them, hence these swamps became wastelands. In contemporary usage of language the word is also used for “sewage pits” inside the city. So on one hand it regards wetlands as wastelands and on the other hand it also includes marginal spaces of the city in the definition similar to the urban ecology discourse. Usually these sewerage pits also contain/inhabit spontaneous vegetation and various insects that are not usually seen inside the city.
Urdu
The common or informal word for wasteland usually used in the casual conversation of “Urdu” language is “بنجر (Banjar)” which translates in English to “barren”. It is referred to here as informal because it is not actually an Urdu word but comes from “Sanskrit” language and has been borrowed in Urdu because of the common culture of India and Pakistan. The word also has a variety of implications and is also extensively used in poetry even to refer to emotional states like “بنجر دل ” or “Barren Heart”. As the landscapes vary in different regions of a country, the state of barrenness also differs. In certain areas it is the land that has always been barren and will remain so, making it permanent while in other areas the condition is temporary in nature.
The more formal or dictionary word for wasteland in Urdu is “غیر مزروعہ (Ghair Mazrooah)” (Feroze-Uddin, 2008) meaning “uncultivated”. The word has a strictly agricultural connotation which also makes sense in an agrarian economy as almost 20% of Pakistan GDP comes from agriculture. So there are two problems associated with this type of wasteland. Firstly, that it does not yield anything and secondly that it doesn’t absorb the “labor force” which agriculture does by employing more than half of the country's workforce (Pakistan, 2019). The word for wasteland in the Urdu dictionary of law is “بےکار ” (Rehman, 2003) which means “unused or unusable” and is used in the instances where the state is not currently benefiting from a piece of land due to geographical or political reasons.
Both the words from formal language as well as law dictionary seem to have their influence from the British colonization of India where the categories of waste and productive land were applied to groups supposedly attached to different landscapes, i e, “tribes” and “castes”. This categorization was based on John Locke’s theory of private property where he maintained that by bringing more lands into intensive cultivation English colonization would raise agricultural productivity and this ideology formed the doxa of British policies regarding the land use and ownership in India (Whitehead, 2010). So in this way the land became a wasteland and lacked value because it had not been enclosed, privatized and commodified this labeling/categorization was used to justify state appropriation of land left lying idle.
The category was also changing for the benefits of colonial administration. For example, initially forests in India were seen as woodlands and a barrier to cultivation and then to use them for agriculture production a debate started about these remaining “wastelands” of India. Very soon the debates steamed concerns about the depletion of forests resources because wood from these forests was in high demand after the Royal Navy started building ships in the Indian subcontinent after 1780. So then those wastelands considered to contain the most valuable timber were to be converted into reserve forests, and were to be managed wholly by the forest department. (Whitehead, 2010). Then special laws were created for forest development, management and restoration. In addition, the Forest Act prohibited marking, girdling, felling and lopping of all growing trees, shrubs, and plants within the reserved forest.
Thus, the category of wasteland that was so fluid during colonial rule left an impression on the formal understanding of wasteland on a whole language.
conclusion
The above discussion of three languages proves that the various understandings of the term wasteland in a similar region is based on various natural, cultural and political factors. While understanding wastelands we need to consider many other factors including the political and historical backgrounds. In Punjabi and Saraiki, wastelands are considered more of a natural landscape while in Urdu following the colonial logic, wasteland becomes a social category that applied both to the supposedly unproductive uses that lands were put to, to lands held in common, or to land left idle. Hence, it conflated specific types of land-use with a singular form of ownership. (Whitehead, 2010).
The similar situation exists within the urban discourse and understanding of urban wasteland. The analysis of Urdu language and colonization serves as a basis to understand how the term is a political construct and has been used in Urban Ecology to regard marginal spaces inside the city as Wastelands. By doing so a value is added or subtracted from these landscapes for example some areas are regarded valuable due to higher rates of biodiversity found in them as compared to the rest of natural landscapes. After marking this potential value preferences come along for preservation and restoration of these spaces which then limits activities in these spaces, defines who can use these spaces and how. So in a way these marginalized spaces became interest centers for ecologists and the term was borrowed or rather politicized to discuss these spaces for their removal, appreciation and protection.
References:
Arneil, B. (1996). The Wild Indian's Venison: Locke's Theory of Property and English Colonialism. London Guilhall University.
Brien, E. O. (1881). Glossary of Multani Language .
Feroze-Uddin, M. (2008). Feroze ul Lughat. Feroze sons limited.
Gandy, M. (2013). Marginalia: Aesthetics, Ecology, and Urban Wastelands. Annals of the Association of American Geographers.
Gandy, M. (Director). (2017). Natura Urbana: The Brachen of Berlin [Film].
Pakistan, G. o. (2019, 11 05). Agriculture Statistics. Retrieved from Pakistan Beaureau of Statistics: http://www.pbs.gov.pk/content/agriculture-statistics
Palma, V. D. (2014). Wasteland: A History. London: Yale University Press.
Rehman, J. T. (2003). Law Dictionary of Urdu. Department of Justice.
Whitehead, J. (2010). John Locke and the Governance of India’s: The Category of Wasteland in Colonial. Economic and Political Weekly.