Commoning and Territoriality in the Public Space

“Plasma” of Historical Cities: Investigating Emplaced

Network Dynamics in Bhaktapur, Kathmandu Valley,
Nepal

Shyam Sunder Kawan,1 Manfredo Manfredini2 and Haisong Wang3

1
Shanghai University and Nepal Engineering College
{[email protected]}
2
The University of Auckland and Shanghai University
{[email protected]}
1
Shanghai University
{[email protected]}

Abstract
Recent research on sustainable urban development has indicated commoning and
collaborative territorial production as crucial components of the open city (Sennett). In
historic cities of the Global South, globalising free-market forces cause disruptive
transformation processes that deterritorialise, overcode and homogenise their emplaced
spatialities (Lefebvre) by enclosing public space and depleting the complex assemblages of
concrete, relational and agential elements of their networks. This paper explores the “urban
plasma” (Latour) of central spatial systems with intense relational life and profoundly
stabilised networks of multiple coordinated actors, activities and behaviours. It discusses
representative instances of spatial becoming of small public spaces in steady daily
transformation involving assemblies (Hardt and Negri) of multiple stakeholders in the Salla
Ganesh, the central area of Bhaktapur (Kathmandu valley) and a top cultural world heritage
site in Nepal. It operationalises recent developments of ANT and territoriology to produce a
mapping of the spatial strategies and tactics of relevant networks operating through
profoundly intertwined socialisation, economic, cultural and touristic practices. The
findings unveil distinctive patterns where intricate articulations of normative, agonistic and
creative forces framed by informal social norms in ongoing negotiation constantly readjust
public space. The discussion broadens the discourse on sustainable public space,
highlighting the challenges of the growing deterritorialisation processes for the production
of differential, cohesive and unremittently commoned public space, and advocates for its
irreplaceable political role in affirming the universal Right to the city.

Keywords: Public Space, Urban Commons, Conjunctural Urbanism,

Territoriology, Actor-Network Theory, Bhaktapur, World Heritage Cities,
Global South.
2

1. Introduction

In the recent decade, the growth of cities has undergone an unprecedented

acceleration, progressively reconfiguring the globalisation patterns and processes
that have moderated their modern dynamics and, particularly, their uneven
development.[1,2] A relentless technological development has escalated the
production of spatial and social inequality. Geographically, the technology has
advanced the elimination of spatial barriers that the contemporary capitalist mode
of production imposes.[3] Dominant logics of relentless financial growth toward an
‘annihilation of space by time’[4] affirm the city as a commodity, with spatialites of
concrete abstraction.[5] As a plurality of fantastic dream worlds and hyper-realities,
the city is a transcalar network of equalised sites for a consumer society that has
withdrawn from the institutional worlds of exchange, politics and community.[6,7]
Relationally, it has articulated the larger social acceleration leading towards a
‘universal alienation’[8] in which the increasing complexity of every social,
technological and experiential domain creates continuous radically disruptive
changes that only a few powerful systems can control by establishing domains of
dynamic stabilisation preventing individual’s desynchronisation and alienation.[8,9]
Annihilation of space and universal alienation are driven by capital’s ‘landscape
jumps’ by ‘see-saw movements’, described by Neil Smith[1] as peculiar to our time.
This operates deeply restructuring ‘spatial fixes’, outlined by David Harvey[10] as
material processes sustaining contemporary conditions of globalisation. Their
compound agency steers an emerging global urbanity[11] that generalises its
dynamics on the planetary scale with systematic mobility across geographical scales
and chronological paces. They irreversibly disestablish the conventional urban
space by instituting unprecedented double contradictory technologies of time-space
compression. From one angle, the exploitative annihilation of space by time disrupts
embedded social relations through globalised deregulation of state control that
enables the private property to conquer and restructure the commons into
dynamically stable realms (e.g. through the replacement of central public space with
pseudo-civic all-encompassing shopping malls). Concurrently, a countering process
of ‘annihilation of time by space’[12(pp. 234–236),13] makes the exasperated unevenness
a function of negative territorial equalisation that uses the dynamically destabilised
and placidly translocalised realities to efface any form of temporal
appropriation.[13,14]

Yet, the technological advances, which have facilitated the planetary pervasion of
the imbalance-based hegemonic neoliberal culture, sustaining the extension of
transformative principles and practices dictated by free-market logic into political
spaces,[15,16] have driven social dynamics into spatialities of flow[17] unevenly too.
While the recent reconfiguration has massively impacted the Global South,
eminently in the Chinese space, some of its regions appear only partially imbricated
and present a crucial enigma for the global uneven development theory.[18(p. 263)]

More importantly, cities have emerged as a complex of multitude relationships

3

between people and the environment along with the realities of events and
intangibilities. Thus, although it is undeniable that every city is exposed to global
market influences, there are cities which still have inclusionary places for people of
diverse ethnicity, gender, age, culture and class.[19] Propelling economic forces and
neoliberal administrative control over spaces are insufficient to annihilate public
spaces in historical cities to be socially produced.[20] Historic cities are resistant
strongholds of emplaced networks of integrated social, spatial and cultural practices
transmitted across generations. The social construct perhaps reveals meaning and
value in public space to the people and society as establishments[21]. Though
rampant neoliberal trends encroach, non-dominant associations co-exist in the
realities of public spaces of such historic cities. Nevertheless, these accumulated
spatial realities are agencies for social space production that annotates multitude
and diversified assemblages through complexity. To understand this spatiality in a
historical city context, an overall outlook of cities becomes insufficient to
understand their allure, merely illusions and abstractions of urbanity.[22]

Thus, this study embraces Bruno Latour’s theoretical lens based on Actor-Network
Theory[23] and the concept of urban plasma[22] under a social scientific approach that
enables redressing the complex nature of cities and their existence. The Actor-
Network Theory is the ontological basis operationalised for an empirical study on
territorial networks that sustain complex territorialisation processes in the public
space of a historical urban context with century-long incremental socio-spatial
practices. This study seeks to shed light on crucial aspects of the spatial
embodiments of the networks of emplaced relational practices by documenting and
describing the territoriality of a relevant central space in the distributed urbanity of
Kathmandu Valley. The study area is the historic core of Bhaktapur Municipality,
and the research concentrates on Salla Ganesh, a small public space in the
UNESCO-listed urban system.[24]

2. Bhaktapur context as the study area

Bhaktapur is a small historic settlement on the eastern side of the Kathmandu district
that comprises the most extensive urban system of the seven ensembles within this
valley, Bhaktapur Durbar Square: a coherent complex formed of the royal palace,
two principal temples and a traditional trade route between two main urban spaces,
Taumandi Square and Dattatraya Square.[24,25] Salla Ganesh is a place rich in social,
material and cultural realities located in the Buffer Zone of the monumental area in
the city’s Northeast adjacent to Dattatreya Square. It is a public space with several
monuments dominated by an ancient 3-tiered temple that enshrines the
neighbourhood deity, after which it is named. The open space in front of the temple
hosts an elongated platform that supports four chaityas, Buddhist stupa-like shape
4

shrines very elaborately ornamented.

Figure 1 Map of Salla Ganesh public space showing its spatial realities (Source: Author)
5

This public space is at the intersection of 5 narrow alleys leading to different parts
of the city and, to the west, behind a buildings row, is connected to a large traditional
civic pond. Salla Ganesh open space is lined by buildings hosting residential, retail
and community activities, including a public school and a ward office (Figure 1).
This space hosts a multitude of everyday life religious, commercial, social, and
cultural activities (Figure 2). Bhaktapur Municipality has allotted this space for the
primary local daily market, relocating it from the nearby Datttatreya Square, where
it created chaotic situations. Given the location and scale, the market attracts
customers from the entire district and vendors from various parts of the province.
According to information collected from interviews, informal market activities
happen from around 5:00 am to 9:00 am and from around 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm, while
formal retailers operate without interruption throughout the day. This space also has

Figure 2. a) Platform with chaityas, b)Temple area and its plinth, c) Peripheral condition of
the public space (Source: Author, 2022)
significant religious activities performed chiefly in the morning by a large number
of people coming to visit the temple and shrines.

3. Methodology

This study adopts an ethnographical and phenomenological methodology for the

integrated analysis of social, spatial and temporal territorial processes emplaced in
the study area. We implemented the Latourian oligopticon appraisal tactic through
field visits that create “narrow windows through which, via numerous narrow
channels, we can link up with only some aspects of beings (human and non-human)
which together comprise the city.” [26(p. 1)] A combination of observation recordings
and in-depth interviews was used to investigate several critical issues, particularly
focusing on the territorialisation processes of occupation, association, stabilisation
and crystallisation,[27] where emerging organisation “helps to coalesce and stabilize
several affordances provided by a given urban environment.” [28(p. 1)] Specifically,
to explore how spatial production[29] is processed in terms of actants, practices and
acts, the study explored the human and non-human actant interrelationships in the
formation of dynamic territorialities and examined how territories transform
operating as transformative and transformational agents in the urban environment.
Through immersive experientially conducted visits, our data collection method uses
three main tactics of annotating while observing, visually documenting while
engaging and dialogically interviewing.
6

Annotated observations were taken through regular visits in the study area three
days per week and twice daily over one month, in May 2022. The recording actant
strategies and tactics of territorial occupation, association and stabilisation were
made by noting down in writing and mapping. The iconographic documentation
was collected during the visits by targeting the dynamics of space utilisation at
different moments of the day. Occupancies, rituals and market activities in
significant moments were recorded through photos. Moreover, short videos were
made to record the processes of transformation. The interviews were loosely
structured dialogues conducted during the visits using the contextual inquiry
method, that mainly uses open-ended questions to obtain abundant information on
precise spatial behaviours and acts. The interview were based on a pre-planned
series of question focusing on the process of territorialisation, and contextually
developed into questions in relation to the observations as well as the answers of
the interviewees. Different local actors were interviewed, including local and
immigrant vendors, storekeepers, customers and municipal officers. Two to three
persons in each group were interviewed. Their selection was based on their
availability. An appointment was made to interview the municipality officers. The
interviews were held either in national language, Nepali, or in local language
Newari, the former chiefly used with the outsiders, the latter with the locals.

The questions to the vendors were all associated with their residency, activities and
role in establishing and stabilising their activities in that public space over time.
These questions also included those concerning their (in)formal strategies and
tactics of territorial appropriation and their relations to emplaced networks.
Similarly, the questions to the municipality officers were about their regular duties,
experiences and management trends. The customers were interrogated to
understand their choices of items and places for buying them. The responses were
audio-recorded with an android phone. The recordings were transcribed, translated
into English and decoded.

4. Theoretical underpinnings

In the context of public spaces, research inclines toward the western narrative of
loss, elucidating the excessive domain of privatisation of public spaces. Some
researchers, however, focus on residual forms of spatial appropriation and everyday
urbanism, describing the capacity of informal practices to territorialise contested
public spaces daily. There is a significant gap in research regarding the Global
South, particularly considering the participation of materiality that supports the
spatial contestation of public spaces.

There is agreement among researchers that public space hosts complicated networks
of actors and practices, mixing socio-political, cultural and economic activities. One
relevant study that addresses such complexity in emplaced networks of actors,
relationships and perspectives is Bruno Latour’s ‘Paris: The Invisible City” [22]. In
7

this study, Latour hypothesises the existence of a quasi-metaphysical space: the

‘urban plasma’ constituted by the constant interconnection and intertwinement of
heterogeneous elements, interactions and realities. Latour postulates that this
plasma can only be understood holistically through keen surveillance of the
interconnectedness between the constituents.”[23] To make sense of such a complex
web, Latour urges to adopt a framework that can comprehensively investigate
networks of relationships between actants, both humans and non-humans, based on
ecological principles: the Actor-Network Theory (ANT). This theory includes the
formulation of the oligopticon: an analytical instrument to penetrate the complexity
of urban systems through diverse human experiences apprehended unitarily in a
real-time situation.[23]

Public spaces are bound with territoriality: a controlling capacity over delimited
space commonly found in everyday life.[27,30,31] Territoriality can be distinguished
into two aspects: human territoriality,[32] referring to the defensive and personalised
territories, and administrative territoriality,[33] concerning the affluence of power
into social space. Public space intertwines multiple human and administrative
territorial dimensions tending to stabilise networks in emplaced spatial practices and
territorial associations while preserving their intrinsic destabilisation dynamics.
This metastability and the related status of permanent becoming are crucial to
forming competing networks that include instances of urban commons.[34,35] Such
commons are critical counterhegemonic institutions that produce, preserve and
share material and immaterial resources among commoners, countering the market-
driven order of the current capitalist mode of production.[34,36,37]

5. Study

The overall territorial network of Bhaktapur’s plasma

According to Bruno Latour, dense cities are the best representation of urban plasma
regardless of their physical boundaries, configuration and scale extension.
Bhaktapur’s plasma is a rich and profoundly stabilised system of networks. In its
territory, the fundamental elements of its assemblage are integrated, associating
inhabitants’ daily life activities, embedding narrations and, more importantly,
spatial realities and their interactions.[38] The diversity of this city is in the multiple
historical layers,[39] morphological and typological configurations, ethnic
composition[25] and urban ecosystems that supports the formation of its innumerable
territorial networks. The territoriality of this city extends into both vertical and
horizontal layers.[40] The vertical layers indicate the historical development of
embedded realities of public space; the horizontal layers assemble and preserve the
multiple realities that originated in both pre-capitalist and capitalist periods.[40] The
territorial complexity of this city’s matrix of vertical and horizontal layers is
embodied in its built environment (spatial), rituals (symbolic) and performative
spatialities (social). The morphological and typological characteristics of urban
8

space are just the most patent evidence of such associations that ANT’s
process/relationship approach considers when addressing city systems by extracting
territories at different levels of perception.

Furthermore, the Newars of Bhaktapur follow peculiar ritually mediated urban

spaces and overtly lifestyle rituals.[25] Everyday worships in shrines/temples, birth
to death commemorating traditions; music and dance organisations in
festivals/occasions and societal norms as ‘guthi system’ form an inseparable rituals
of the local Newar society. Newars are the indigenous group settling in the Nepal
valley since prehistoric times,[41] speaking Tibeto-burman dialect.[42] This study
considers the territories established by the Newar society and their socio-spatial
assemblages as crucial components of the locally emplaced networks.[43] On the
contrary, it rejects any idealisation of these spatial practices as remnants of the pre-
modern absolute time[44] that has survived the reterritorialisation of the
contemporary globalised urbanism.

By focusing on the larger Bhaktapur urban context, this study intends to zoom in its
spatial realities and everyday life, underlining the persistence of territories from a
wider regional perspective among the three central districts of Bagmati Province
(Province no. 3), including the major urban centres of Kathmandu, Patan and
Bhaktapur. Bhaktapur, the capital of the region during the Malla Kingdom between
the 12th and the 15th centuries, missed the rapid urbanisation of the other two cities
after Nepal’s opening-up in 1951.[45] However, this city is not free from the impact
of the planetary urbanisation phenomenon. The level of transformation that these
cities have experienced from then is beyond projection due to centralised power
accumulation and policies for development that the Government of Nepal has
adopted. This urban influx invited immigrants from the rural sector in search of
economic services and facilities to the centre; Bhaktapur also has its impact from
this global consumption culture. On the contrary, this city is advantageous for the
upkeep of its historicity in its spatial realities and urban systems due to its tardiness
in the development stream at first.[39] Nevertheless, market-driven affirmations
threaten spaces that have sustained the city for a long time. In the contemporary
context, (de)territorialisation is a fundamental issue requiring readjustments, as
confirmed by an expert interviewee:

Its [Bhaktapur’s] heritage area has disruptive activities that cause mobility
problems for pedestrians and vehicles too. Even there are cases of
accidents in these areas. So, for the sake of the safety of the people,
important interventions are necessary. (Municipal officer 1)

Commons and Territoriality

In the study area, it is noted that there already existed emplaced spatial practices
that the community value and argue to own the space. Such activities are present in
almost of public spaces in Bhaktapur where people worship, interact and shop as
their integral part of lifestyle.
9

First nobody was allowed to sell their goods here but later some people
(local farmers) pleaded to sell some of their vegetables and then started
again. They were actually allowed to do that in the upper part (yata)
according to the decision made by ward officials. Only the local farmers
after there plead to provide space to sell, they are allowed to sell here.
(Municipal Officer 1)

Such regulations forced these economic activities to shift from major squares like
Dattatreya to smaller places like.

The municipality officials have told us that the religious

buildings/monuments need to be clean and beautiful for foreigners to see.
So, you shouldn’t do these kind of activities there and elsewhere where
you have such structures. (Local Vendor 2)

This study focuses on the two spatial realities located at the front and the back of
the temple of the Salla Ganesh public space divided into spatialities with respect to
the territories they form (Figure 1). The front is composed by three spatialites,
podium, stores and temple/shrine, the back of two, street and platform/plinth. This
distinction reflects the stabilised territoriality resulting from a dispute in occupying
and claiming the space between the two groups of local and outsider vendors.

Territoriality in the front square

5.3.1. Podium area

The podium comprises a raised platform with four chaityas. Each day during the
visit, the podium was packed with a linear vegetable sale by the local vendors. As
per the agreement, this podium was allocated to the vendors (local farmers)as
confirmed by one of its vendors:

We had a dispute about occupying the space here. In the presence of

administration and municipality officials, one agreement was made in
which, the locals growing their own agro-products and selling are allowed
to occupy this (rectangular platform) place and others need to adjust.
(Local vendor 1)

Concerning the territorial strategy,[31] the municipality has favoured the local
community. Despite some interchanged positions, most of the occupants in this
territory were the same faces. On the ground, each vendor would have two flat rice
bags lie down on the platform for each vendor adjoining to each other, sometimes a
larger plastic sheet and Kolhan (Kolhan is a scale-like structure carried by male
newars on their shoulders for carrying their goods to the farm from home and vice
versa). The vegetables get interchanged/lended while selling; the informal
territories are blurred/squeezed to add on stuff on this podium. Moreover, it would
even provide an escape space for those from the temple area with a readjustment of
10

space. This commoning practice[37] that fosters interchangeability and flexibility

still occurs in this type of territory, ensuring tolerance and sharing of opinion among
the vendors.

The municipality officials have told us that the religious

buildings/monuments need to be clean and beautiful for foreigners to see.
So, you shouldn’t do these kind of activities there and elsewhere where
you have such structures. (Local Vendor 2)

However, a potential invasion was noticed when a woman occupied the space being
stubborn though being different from the local farmers. Some of the local vendors
were complaining against her but she did not even care about it. In such case
freedom in the commons brings ruin to all (Lefebvre, 1991).[46]

5.3.2. Temple area

This territoriality structure in this square section has a unique composition of
stabilised mixed vendor units. Because of the shrine, the neighbourhood receives a
large group of users-worshippers every day both in the morning and evening. There
is a ritual of circumambulation after worshipping the shrine inside the temple. The
marking stones in front of the temple and on its North-West corner denote this
section's spiritual territory. The territorial tactics in this section are intertwined and
complicated as the ritual and market activities intersect (Figure 3). One distinctive
aspect of this territoriality is the interaction between at street vendors and the

Figure 3. Entry to the temple and a local vendor at its sides (Source: Author, 2022)
11

worshippers, who would buy vegetables after leaving the temple. This kind of
interaction sustain this urban common, which has flourished for centuries in
Bhaktapur, notwithstanding the conflict between the practices (with minor incidents
recorded during the visits).

by municipality officials, two ladies with their goods made an escape to the podium
and then returned back and reinstalled again after the officials left the area.

5.3.3. Retail store areas

Retail shops have been showing constant territorial tactics throughout the year.
Regarding space occupancy, they overflow to the public space displaying their
vegetables and aligning their shopfront almost the whole day. Their regular business
pattern is that they collect the goods from the carrier in the morning and store them
in their shops to sell. They have their network established with the local vendors to
collect the remaining items. They usually are all the local citizens taking care of
these retail shops. Regarding the overall territorial context of this public space, they
are with smooth play.

It is our usual way of bringing our items outside and take them in every
day. We don’t have much to deal with the municipal officers but
sometimes, they would intervene when we overflow much in the street.
(Retail Shopkeeper 1)

Territoriality in the rear square

This comprises two sub-realities: street space and upper platform.

The street space comprises a composite kind of user groups, dominantly the vendors
from outside over the locals. They define their territories with large stretches of
plastic sheets and other elements and thus occupy relatively larger space openly on
the ground and streets. Unlikely the former group, they bring goods in larger volume
from a wholesaler through a vehicle/carrier early in the morning. Their territorial
tactics are temporary and convulsive but daily.

We come from Panga and She is from Thimi. We sell at this place from 6
am to 9 am. (Immigrant Vendor 1)

Contrary to this notion, this tactic often hinders the street and pedestrian mobility.

If we don’t intervene, they would end up occupying the space whole day
and sell their goods. They have done that previously. (Municipal Officer
2).

Such phenomenon influences other spatial tactics in the network, resulting in (de)
territorialisation.
12

They sell their items near my shopfront and draw all the customers there.
So, I also have extended (lifted) a stall with them. (Retail Storekeeper 2)

One of the stores in the N-E street of this public space also joined this territory
recently. Such a constantly changing network i.e. stabilisation/destabilisation is
what lies in the city’s plasma.[22,23] In this context, a duality of territorial complexity
is evident.

Our people only brings seasonal vegetables while these people bring
varieties of vegetables. There are choices into them. Nowadays,
throughout the year, everything can be grown esp. cucumber, tomatoes,
lady’sfinger, gourds, brinjals etc. (Customer 1)

The upper platform is dominated by the outsider vendors. According to the

territorial strategy that the municipality has executed, they have moved on to a small
portion of this area. Regarding their tactics, they also occupy larger spaces with
varieties of items to sell. Since this reality lies aside from the main public space,
they appropriate this territory for a long with no conflicts with the local vendors.
This spot also acts as the base to reside their belongings for ‘free on street’ vendors
so that they can go roam around in the city and sell their goods on their way.

I have my stuffs secured here and then go in a roam selling vegetables in

different places in Bhaktapur. The municipality officials come and ask us
to clear the space. What to do? We need to work for living. (Immigrant
Vendor 2)

6. Conclusion

Urbanism driven by market forces is planetary and it is presented by the market

ideology as inevitable. In such a situation the urban commons of cities are highly
impacted in terms of spatial practices of spatial appropriation. This study described
the territorialisation in small scale urban public space setting, showing how formed.
Operationalising the conceptual ANT instruments, it has provided evidence on the
processes of situated establishment of networks with distinctive territorialities that
are highly complex and influential at the regional scale.

Finding show a major distinction between two sub-networks of territorial actants:

the local vendors, stabilised at the front of the public square, and the outsiders,
emplaced at the back of the square. This study has described the sub-realities and
their respective territories as reterritorialisation instances emerging from spatial
contestations and adjustments among counterhegemonic commoners resisting to
modern forces of radical deterritorialization that annihilate longstanding everyday
13

practices and economic activities of emplaced communities.

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Acknowledgement
This paper is an outcome of invaluable information from the user groups in the Salla
Ganesh area of Bhaktapur municipality, ward no. 9 during my questionnaire survey.
So, I am very much thankful to the municipal officers, retail shopkeepers, customers
and vendors (both local and immigrants) enrolled in that public space for enabling
me document the spatial realities and activities occurring in this public space. Their
openly sharing of experiences, memories and current situations at different
circumstances that they encountered at times not only eased me during the survey
and interview sessions but also contribute significantly for this paper.