Towards a minor global architecture at Lamu, Kenya

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3606504
AutoresLindsay Bremner (0000-0002-7687-8325, University of Westminster, autor de correspondencia)
Año2013
Volumen39
Número3
Páginas397-413
Fecha de publicación2013-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSocial Dynamics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0253-3952 • E-ISSN: 1940-7874
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/02533952.2013.842340
OpenAlexW2083042790
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas18
Referencias citadas29

Major accounts of globalisation from a built environment perspective bring global cities and celebrity architects into focus. In this paper, I resist this and give an account of globalisation from the perspective of one of its minor architectures. A minor architecture is not a minor architectural language, but rather one that a minority constructs within a major language, encoding it differently and subverting its prevailing myths. The paper investigates this proposition by focusing on Lamu, the historic Islamic seaport and World Heritage Site on the northern coast of Kenya where a skirmish between local, national and global interests is currently underway over the construction of a new deep-water port. The port is a building site, not only of one of globalisation's major architectures – a port, free economic zone and transportation corridor, but also of one of its minor ones, taking shape through the strategies Lamu's organisations are deploying to object it. Through the analysis of Lamu in the longue durée – its coastal geomorphology and historic spatial protocols, I read these strategies as contemporary deployments of those long put to work at Lamu, through which land- and sea-based logics have been entangled.Keywords: Indian OceanLamuglobalisationzoneminor architecturecamp AcknowledgementsAn earlier version of this study was presented as one of the University of Westminster's 2012/13 Inaugural Lectures on February 20, 2013. I am grateful to Temple University for funding a fieldtrip to Lamu in 2010 and to the Save Lamu and Natural Justice networks for ongoing correspondence about their work.Notes1. Fulling was a vital process in the production of cloth in Europe from the twelfth century on. It involved cleaning and converting wool into a close-knit fabric by soaking it in water and fuller's earth and then pounding it by foot or with heavy wooden hammers. Modern production uses steam and pressure followed by rolling to bind the wool fibres and consolidate them into felt.2. This clan-based system operated until the early nineteenth century when administrative affairs passed out of local hands into those of the Sultan in Zanzibar and later British colonial authority; mtaa exist today as spatial, not administrative entities.3. In 1895 he, without giving up sovereignty over this strip, agreed a fee with Germany for the use of the southern section and an annual rent with Britain for the northern.4. Numerous sources have been consulted for this information. These include: Lederer (Citation2012), Group Blog 70.71 (Citation2009) and Hadhramaut Province (Citation2009).5. One of its most challenging will be the 2–3 million sheep moved from Ethiopia and South Sudan to the Persian Gulf three months before Eid el Adha each year (JPC & BAC/GKA JV Citation2011).6. Until then, Kenya had not benefited to the same extent as other African countries from Chinese investment in infrastructure, which had been limited to a tender to refurbish Nairobi's Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in 2006, a contract to the China Overseas Engineering Group to expand Kisumu airport in 2008, and the granting of exploration rights in some of northern Kenya's oil blocks.7. These were wrecks of the two merchant fleet expeditions to the Kenyan coast led by Zheng He, Ming Dynasty eunuch in the fifteenth century. One of them sunk off Pate Island in the Lamu Archipelago.8. In 2006, Easterling (Citation2008) identified between 3000 and 4000 zones of 66 different zone designations operating in 130 countries.9. These include the Republic of Kenya's Forests Act (Citation2005), Wildlife (Conservation and Management) Act (Citation1989), National Museums and Heritage Act (Citation2006) and the Constitution of Kenya (Citation2010). Kenya is signatory to UNESCO's Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (Citation1972), Ramsar's Convention on Wetlands of International importance (Citation1971) and the United Nation's Convention on Biological Diversity (Citation1992). In terms of Kenya's Environmental Management and Co-ordination Act (Citation1999), the project required an environmental impact assessment, an archaeological impact assessment and an HIV/AIDS prevention plan before construction could commence. Tender documents for the first three port berths were prepared without this having taken place (JPC & BAC/GKA JV Citation2011)

Archaeology · Economy · Geography · Globalization · Minor (academic · Political science · Port (circuit theory · Engineering · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · Law · Socioeconomic Development in Asia · Architecture