Friday, November 10, 2006

Ancient Urbanization Clusters (China & West Africa)


            Traditional theories of urbanization and definitions of a city focus on the notion of centrality.  Those theories necessitates that every city requires the existence of an absolute, centralized, and possibly despotic power that ensure a centralized economy. Such notions imply the unification of the different people within the city is imposed on them rather than spontaneously emerging. Also, in such a scheme, self-identity couldn’t be questioned since members of the city were born into a rigid, and well-defined relationship to the rest of the community, especially to the king. Such definitions fail to account for cities in ancient Shang- China and West Niger civilizations. Both of these civilizations contained diverse populations of discrete specialized families which lived in great proximity and functioned together through exchange of goods. Within such a scheme, both of those civilization experienced a diversified subsistence level.
            To begin with, the city of Jenne-Jeno is the earliest identified settlement in West Africa. Because of the absence of a centralized political, social and economic power or even a unifying ideology or religion, scholars have declined to accept the sight as a city-sight. In Jenne-jeno we encounter the development of increasingly populated groups with a variety of collective skills that slowly developed into a “network of specialized parts.” To develop their city, those groups must have developed concepts of collective differentiation and probably created symbols that would facilitate communication among those different groups. This concept of collective differentiation means that members of one group, to preserve their unique ancestor-worship-cults, tried to establish a self-identity. Thus, despite their extensive communication and exchange of goods with other groups, each group maintained its unique character, “cities without citadels”.
            Because of their different and unique ancestor cults, members of those smaller groups or communities avoided assimilating themselves with other groups, and thus, integration into a single community was avoided. In an effort to preserve their individuality local communities maintained spatial boundaries that separated them from other. These small collective groups, however, still maintained strong relationship with other suppliers or clients, with whom the exchanged goods, by remaining relatively close to other groups. As a result, they were separate but close small collective groups of different specialties and of different spiritual practices. Gradually, one or two cities would develop or  merge into a larger settlement. This larger settlement is still surrounded by groups which, too, slowly developed into surrounding villages. This egalitarian system, which indicates flexibility and fairness, facilitated the intersection and overlap or resources, as well as communication of knowledge and kills. Hence, a clustering system of urbanization emerged peacefully and spontaneously, forming something similar to our modern day concept of a city ( downtown and suburbs!).
            Similarly, the settlements during the Shang dynasty in China, are marked by their dispersed scheme. Each of these small settlements had its own set of artisans, ancestor-worship-cult, and elite lineage. This suggest the presence of independent communities that were almost self-sufficient, “eco-social independence”. Moreover, as described earlier in the first essay, the Shang empire was rather a territorial state that allowed a great amount of flexibility. Thus one can propose that these independent communities, because of their proximity, decided to join a ‘federation’ initiated and led by the founders of the Shang state. Indeed this confirms the need of a tributary system as well as “publicity-tours” that the king often used to take to the different areas of his state. Further, because of the relative independence of the those communities, the Shang emperor had to develop a “distribution of goods” system that would facilitate communication and would confirm unity among the various communities. Also, because of the variety of ancestor cults that existed in the Shang state, the founders couldn’t claim absolute superiority over the different local cults. In fact, the founders tried to merely unify them, by claiming the divine relationship between the emperor and the heavenly Gods.

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