Amy Brar. Precarious Waters.

PRECARIOUS WATERS

Spatializing Agency among Dispossessed Fisher Women of Lake Chilika

(cover image) - fig. 001: Earth Observatory. NASA. MODIS Land Cover. [Chilika Lake and Nalabana Bird Santuary].

March 19, 2014.

PRECARIOUS WATERS

Spatializing Agency among Dispossessed Fisher Women of Lake Chilika

Amy Brar MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design Projective Cities 2021/23

To Nani and Mom

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My deepest thanks to the people of Chilika Lake, without whom this body of work would not exist. A special thank you to the girls and women who took part in interviews, conversations, focus groups and drawing exercises for their time and attention. Thank you to my friends, Ms. Jhilli Jalli and Mr. Jhullu Jalli, for the tea, food and warmth in Khatisahi village, where this research is predominantly rooted. A big hug to Ms. Kabita Sethi and her mother-in-law for sharing their difficult personal stories.

My sincere thanks to the Administration Services of the Government of Odisha. Particularly, Mr. Manoj Kumar Nayak, Block Development Officer (BDO) of Krushnaprasad, for the unwavering support, facilitation and encouragement. I extend my thanks to the Revenue and Forest Services for their expertise and guidance in navigating unfamiliar waters. I am grateful to my boat drivers, Mr. Naba Jena of Maensa and Mr. Sudham Babu of Berhampur, for transporting me safely every day. To my friend, Mr. Biranchi Narain Pattanayak, thank you for your support in translating from Odiya to Hindi, and for being an irreplaceable energy in the fieldwork.

Thank you to my professors, Platon, Hamed and Doreen, for believing in my research, expanding my knowledge, encouraging my remote fieldwork and guiding me through to the end. Thank you also to Cristina, Roozbeh and Daryan for the inputs that made this work possible. To my incredible cohort, thank you for the laughs, beers, coffees, late night conversations, emotional support, etc etc etc....

Big thanks to my best friend, Gaurav Sawhney, for the beautiful photographs during the site visit of March 2023. Finally, thank you to my wonderful family and all my friends for their love and unconditional support. Especially the two special women of my life, Nani and Mom.

ABSTRACT

1 Elizabeth Grosz, Space, Time, and Perversion: Essays on the Politics of Bodies (New York: Routledge, 1995), 94..

“Precarious Waters” examines and spatialises forms of water-living central to the lives of fisherwomen of Lake Chilika, to reposition water rituals as a vehicle for enhancing agency in the context of marginalised fishing communities. By subverting the homogeneous, universal, and regular readings of [wet-]space that reinforce inequity across space and time1, the dissertation proposes a fundamental shift in understanding notions of value and productivity, by learning through the embodied knowledge, rituals, and practices of Chilika’s traditional fisherwomen. Rather than simply viewing their conditions as lack of infrastructure, “Precarious Waters” argues that there are existing protocols, generating forms of living different from dominant developmental discourse, which can stitch the fractured socio-ecological spatiality proliferating around Chilika.

By revealing that wet spaces in these villages are collective and external to the domestic, the research demonstrates the formation of an invisible network of protocols at settlement scale. These invisible networks, choreographed by fisherwomen, are instrumental to the socio-spatial relationships of these marginalised fishing communities. Through a series of design interventions informed by empirical and anthropological research, the dissertation aims to enhance spatial agency by working with fisherwomen at the intra-village scale. Furthermore, by expanding into the territorial trialogue between fishers, non-fishers and administrators, the spatialised network functions as a threshold for negotiation and exchange between historically non-cooperating social groups. “Precarious Waters” confronts existential threats resulting from the socio-spatial hierarchy embedded in modern water infrastructure, by adopting a collaborative and heterogeneous modus operandi, and highlighting value through the subaltern female body.

(page left) fig. 002: Lakeside handpump in Berhampur. October 2022. Source: Author.

Precarious

/Prɪˈkɛːrɪəs/

Adjective

Not securely held or in position; dangerously likely to fall or collapse

Dependent on chance; uncertain

2 Mouza is the official term for a type of administrative land unit composed of multiple villages. Local administration services continue to operate at the district, block, mouza and village level to monitor land and tax.

3 Gram Panchayat is the official term for a basic village-governing institute in Indian villages and is a democratic structure at the grass-roots level. A Gram Panchayat is a collection of Revenue Villages under 1 head village. For example, Khatisahi is a Revenue Village in the Nuapada Gram Panchayat, which contains other villages of Anlakuda, Barunakuda, Gurubai, Jahnikuda and Nuapada as well.

Precarity – used here to signify fragility, ephemerality, and uncertainty – is embodied firstly through the aqueous nature of Chilika’s geography. With dry-wet boundaries in constant flux, varying with weather conditions ranging from intense monsoons to dry winter spells, the relationship between bodies and their environment is as fluid as the geography itself. This dynamic socio-spatial relationship results in specific and localised forms of living, which are born out of an aqueous precarity. Precarity in the context of Chilika’s fishing villages arises not only from environmental, but also spatial, sociological, and economic constructs. And with regard to fisherwomen, an additional layer of precarity is generated through gender inequality, where the female is often considered to be inferior to the male members of the family – elder brother, father, father-in-law, or husband.

A second layer of precarity – territorial precarity - stems from the spatial organization of the fishing villages. On analyzing the territorial distribution of these villages, a scattered pattern of settling emerges. In the specific case of the coastal Krushnaprasad block of Chilika, of the 96 mauzas2 only 11 are considered by residents and officials as Matsyajibhi or “fishing communities”. Additionally, there is no official documentation of this classification between fishers and non-fishers; information regarding this classification is purely embodied knowledge that can be extracted through oral testimony. Having settled in a scattered constellation across the block, Matsyajibhi are physically separated from one another by other (non-fishing) communities as well as natural barriers like forests and open waters. The nonfishing communities are also involved in fishing for their livelihood, but do not derive their identity from the profession. Furthermore, the non-fishing communities often belong to higher ranks in the Hindu caste system and possess greater assets in the form of land. The status of the Matsyajibhi as a minority community not only within the region, but also within their gram panchayat3 boundaries, has led to this precarity.

A third type of precarity – occupational precarity – is intricately linked with territorial precarity, rooted as they both are in the social marginalization dictated by caste. Being considered socially inferior to non-fishing communities, the fisherfolk often succumb to financial and social pressure in decision-making. The relative inability to access financial, educational, and political resources allows the fishing communities to be dominated by their counterparts in critical decision-making regarding the operation of the village and gram panchayat. As a concrete example, most brackish waters leased from the government by fishing communities get de facto subleased to non-fishing communities at nominal rentals. As a result, fishing communities have reduced access to shallow water for shrimp culture, forcing them to venture into volatile waters, thus experiencing a dramatic reduction in daily catch. The wide awareness gap between the fisherman’s financial expectation and the actual export market value of cultured prawn is a major blind spot that non-fishers further exploit, resulting in occupational precarity. A residual effect of this occupational displacement is an erosion of the fisherfolk’s historical identity itself.

Lastly, the clear discrepancy between cadastral divisions and settlement patterns at village scale are indicative of how local forms of living are unable to conform with top-down planning policies, generating an uncertainty with regards to land rights and ownership. The cadastral map of Khatisahi village reveals a micro-parceling of land: the average residential plot of land is 0.02 hectares, and all land parcels have multiple named tenants. Additionally, the land in these coastal fishing villages is deemed to be of the least economic value since it is uncultivatable due to high salinity levels. This situation essentially prevents the fisherfolk from availing any substantial loans against their land deeds, resulting in economic precarity.

fig. 003: figure-ground of Noliapatana Village. Drawn by Author.

fig. 001: Earth Observatory. NASA. MODIS Land Cover. [Chilika Lake and Nalabana Bird Santuary]. March 19, 2014.

fig. 002: Lakeside handpump in Berhampur. October 2022. Source: Author.

fig. 003: figure-ground of Noliapatana Village. Drawn by Author.

fig. 004: figure-ground of Kuanarpur Village. Drawn by Author.

fig. 005: figure-ground of Rasakudi Village. Drawn by Author.

fig. 006: location of Chilika Lake on the Political Map of India. Drawn by Author. fig. 007: illustration of seagrass. Drawn by Author.

fig. 008: location of 11 traditional fisher revenue villages. Krushnaprasad Block, Puri, Odisha. Drawn by Author. fig. 009: Khatisahi Revenue Village. Krushnaprasad Block, Puri, Odisha. Drawn by Author. diagram 2.1: structural system of governance in villages of Krushnaprasad Block, Puri District. fig. 010-019: stills from 'Woman Fills Her Bucket in Noliapatana". October 2022. Source: Author. fig. 020-029: stills from 'Woman Walking to take a bath". October 2022. Source: Author. diagram 2.2: roots of dispossession among Chilika's fisherwomen.

fig. 030-39: stills from 'A fisherwoman cooking on an outdoor stove'. Noliapatana. October 2022. fig. 040: fishermen of Khatisahi drag- net fishing. Khatisahi. March 2023.

fig. 041: illustration of a tiger shrimp. Drawn by Author.

fig. 042: cadastral map no.95, Berhampur Village, 1963. Source: Krushnaprasad Tehsil Office. fig. 043: Krushnaprasad Garh (Palace), Constructed by Raja Sri Bhagirath Mansingh. Established 1798. Krushnaprasad. September 28, 2022. Colour 35mm Film. Source: Author.

fig. 044: During an inspection of shrimp-nets at 6 am with a fisherman from Rasakudi Village. Rasakudi. September 28, 2022. Colour 35mm Film. Source: Author.

diagram 2.3: division of brackish water leases in Chilika Lake.

diagram 2.4: timeline of land rights and historical events from 19th century Odisha. diagram 2.5: definition of one-standard acre in Odisha.

fig. 045-54: figure-ground studies of 11 traditional fishing communities in Krushanprasad, Puri, Odisha.

fig. 056 Location of Kuanarpur Revenue Village in Krushnaprasad Block.

fig. 057: Settlement plan of Kuanarpur village. Drawn by Author.

fig. 058 Location of Patanasi Revenue Village in Krushnaprasad Block.

fig. 059: Settlement plan of Patanasi village. Drawn by Author.

fig. 060 Location of Noliapatana Revenue Village in Krushnaprasad Block.

fig. 061: Settlement plan of Noliapatana village. Drawn by Author.

fig. 062 Location of Rasakudi Revenue Village in Krushnaprasad Block.

fig. 063: Settlement plan of Rasakudi village. Drawn by Author.

fig. 064: Location of Kandaragaon Revenue Village in Krushnaprasad Block.

fig. 065: Settlement plan of Kandaragaon village. Drawn by Author.

fig. 066: Location of Alandapatana Revenue Village in Krushnaprasad Block.

fig. 067: Settlement plan of Alandapatana village. Drawn by Author.

fig. 068: Location of Biripadar Revenue Village in Krushnaprasad Block.

fig. 069: Settlement plan of Biripadar village. Drawn by Author.

fig. 070: Location of Khirisahi Revenue Village in Krushnaprasad Block.

fig. 071: Settlement plan of Khirisahi village. Drawn by Author.

fig. 072: Location of Khatisahi Revenue Village in Krushnaprasad Block.

fig. 073: Settlement plan of Khatisahi village. Drawn by Author.

fig. 074: Location of Maensa Revenue Village in Krushnaprasad Block.

fig. 075: Settlement plan of Maensa village. Drawn by Author.

fig. 076: Location of Berhampur Revenue Village in Krushnaprasad Block.

fig. 077: Settlement plan of Berhampur village. Drawn by Author.

fig. 078: Settlement Section of Khatisahi Village. Pre- Monsoon Season.

fig. 079: Settlement Section of Khatisahi Village. Post- Monsoon Season.

fig. 080: Key Map of Khatisahi Village.

fig. 081: Settlement Scale Plan. Khatisahi Village.

fig. 082: Existing Water Use overlayed on a Natural Features Map of Khatisahi Village.

fig. 083: Existing Water Use overlayed on the Settlement Map of Khatisahi Village.

fig. 084-89: walking along the dike. Six views from Khatisahi, Biripadar and Noliapatana Villages in the monsoon and winter.

fig. 090: Figure-ground diagram of Residence Type A: Individual Box.

fig. 091: Figure-ground diagram of Residence Type B: Composite Linear.

fig. 092: Floor Plan of Residence Type A: Individual Box.

fig. 093: Floor Plan of Residence Type B: Composite Linear

fig. 094: Floor Plan of Outdoor Communal Kitchen.

fig. 095: Floor Plan of Street-Facing Domestic Platform.

fig. 096: Elevation of Communal Hand-Pump/Tubewell.

fig. 097: Lakeside Dike: a buffer to separate brackish waters from the village settlement.

fig. 98: Location of Spatial Registry through a Section of a typical Sahi (Street) in Khatisahi.

fig. 99: Annual roof-thatching. Noliapatana Village. October 2022. Source: Author.

fig. 100: Vacant Site: where a house once used to be. Khatisahi Village. October 2022. Source: Author.

fig. 101: figure-ground of Kandragaon Village. Drawn by Author.

fig. 102: Cover of 'Water Everywhere, And Nowhere'. Source: John Stanmeyer.

fig. 103: Plan of The Karl Mueller Public Bath House, Munich, Germany (1897-1901). Source: Paul Gerhard, 1908.

fig. 104: Ground Floor Plan of Hicks St. Baths, New York. 1903. Re-drawn by Author.

fig. 105: Thermal Spray Bath in Mental Asylum. France, 1880. Source: Unknown.

fig. 106: figure-ground of Alandapatana Village. Drawn by Author.

fig. 107: two fisherwomen return with drinking water at dusk. Khatisahi Village.

fig. 108: Kabita Sethi's mother-in-law walks home after collecting water from the communal tube well.

fig. 109-11: Scans of Hand Drawn Maps of the Village Settlements by married Fisherwomen in their 20s.

fig. 112-14: Drawing exercise 1. Scans of Hand Drawn Maps of Daily Rituals by children. March 2023.

fig. 115-17: Drawing exercise 2. Scans of Hand Drawn Maps of the Village Settlements by children. March 2023.

fig. 118: An afternoon of mapping exercises at school with two young girls.

fig. 119: Matrix of Water Rituals and their location at Village Scale.

fig. 120: Location of Water Rituals and their location at Village Scale, for women.

fig. 121: A fisherwoman carries a bag of rationed rice home.

fig. 122: With Kabita Sethi and her mother-in-law at their home.

fig. 123: A fisherwoman in her tailor room. Biripadar Village.

fig. 124: An old widowed fisherwoman cleans dried fish on the site of her partially collapsed home.

fig. 125: figure-ground of Biripadar Village. Drawn by Author.

fig. 126: A dug-well along the banks of Chilika Lake. Khatisahi Village.

fig. 127: Bathing area for women in Jhilli Jalli's family backyard. Khatisahi Village. March 2023.

fig. 128: A woman drawing water from a well. Bani Lal. Patna, India. 1880. Source: V&A.

fig. 129: Three women of varying ages carry water to their home. 144 (page left) - fig. 130: figure-ground of Khirisahi Village. Drawn by Author. (page left) - fig. 131 Kabita's hatchery. Khatisahi Village. March 2023.

fig. 132: thresholds in water. Noliapatana Village. October 2022 152

fig. 133: Proposed Water Use overlayed on a Natural Features Map of Khatisahi Village.

fig. 134: Proposed Water Use overlayed on the Settlement Map of Khatisahi Village.

fig. 135: joint assembly test. 1:10 model.

fig. 136: Elemental Bamboo Construction Unit for Design Propositions.

fig. 137: Size of Elemental Bamboo Unit in reference to fisherwomen.

fig. 138: section of wash pavilion floating on a pokhari (pond).

fig. 139: section of dike-side toilets.

fig. 140: section of communal sheltered fountain.

fig. 141: wash pavilion floating on a pokhari. Drawn by Author.

fig. 142: exploded axonometric of wash pavilion structural assembly.

fig. 143: spatial diagram of basic unit of the wash pavilion.

fig. 144: floor plan of basic unit of the wash pavilion.

fig. 145: section through a basic unit of the wash pavilion.

fig. 146: external elevation of the basic unit of the wash pavilion.

fig. 147: 6 wash pavilion units assembled over a water body.

fig. 148: a view through the circulation corridor of the floating wash pavilion.

fig. 149: a dike side toilet. Drawn by Author.

fig. 150: exploded axonometric of toilet module structural assembly.

fig. 151: spatial diagram of basic units of toilet modules.

fig. 152: plan of the toilet module. stage 1.

fig. 153: section of the toilet module. stage 1.

fig. 154: elevation of the toilet module, from the village. stage 1.

fig. 155: plan of the toilet module. stage 2.

fig. 156: section of the toilet module. stage 2.

fig. 157: elevation of the toilet module, from the village. stage 2. 186fig. 158: plan of the toilet module. stage 3.

fig. 159: section of the toilet module. stage 3.

fig. 160: elevation of the toilet module, from the village. stage 3.

fig. 161: day-time view of the dike-side toilets in the monsoon from lake chilika.

fig. 162: night-time view of the dike-side toilets in the monsoon from lake chilika.

fig. 163: section through the sheltered communal fountain.

fig. 164: exploded axonometric of sheltered fountain structural assembly.

fig. 165: spatial diagram of the sheltered fountain.

fig. 166: typical plan of the sheltered pavilion.

fig. 167: typical section of the sheltered pavilion.

fig. 168: Kabita's mother-in-law walks towards the sheltered fountain on a rainy evening.

fig. 169: liquid field of dreams: plan of a village fragment and a constellation of three water equipments (present scenario).

fig. 170: liquid field of dreams: plan of a village fragment and a constellation of three water equipments (a week later).

fig. 171: liquid field of dreams: plan of a village fragment and a constellation of three water equipments (8 months later).

fig. 172: liquid field of dreams: plan of a village fragment and a constellation of three water equipments (a few years later).

fig. 173: (page right) illiustration of Chilika from Balia Anla. Drawn by Author.

fig. 174: Jhilli Jalli's Mother.

fig. 175: a cloth drying in Jhilli's front yard. Khatisahi Village. March 2023.

fig. 176: figure-ground of Khatisahi Village. Drawn by Author.

fig. 177: figure-ground of Maensa Village. Drawn by Author.

(page left) - fig. 004: figure-ground of Kuanarpur Village. Drawn by Author.

The dissertation is organised in three segments – Front matter, Body and Back Matter.

The Front Matter contains acknowledgments, abstract and a prologue on precarity to frame the dissertation.

The Body contains Six Chapters.

The Back Matter of the book has an extensive bibliography and an appendix, which contains drawings, photographs, and other materials essential to the research.

Chapter One, Introduction, presents the research problem, the theoretical framework and scope of the dissertation, and states the research questions, aims and objectives.

Chapter Two, Research Context, is subdivided into 6 sections that provide an in-depth understanding of the research conditions, the case of dispossessed fisherwomen, social conflict between fishers and non-fisher stakeholders, analysis of 11 fishing villages, framing of a spatial argument and notes on material precarity.

Chapter Three, Macro Waters, is a mini-essay on the conception of Modern Water, Global paradigms of Western Capitalist driven infrastructure inextricable from development in water-use spaces, and a colonial appropriation of them. This chapter is to be read as an interlude that provides a background and theoretical frame to be challenged by the dissertation.

Chapter Four, (Fisher) Women & Water(s), provides a contextual lens of the subaltern feminine body that can challenge the establishment of Macro Waters. This chapter provides a bridge between two theoretical interludes that lie on opposite ends of the spectrum, by positioning the knowledge and bodies of fisherwomen as the vehicle to do so. A series of interviews, photographs, original participatory sketches, and analytical drawings compose this chapter, and becomes a key method in the research process.

Chapter Five, Micro Waters, is the second mini essay and interlude, which addresses notions of extreme sharing and communing that resist an individualization of wateruse. Responding to the established conditions discussed in Macro Waters, this essay argues that possession is an invention, which can be demystified by the situated knowledge of fisherwomen. This essay adopts a projective position, towards a de-possession that reconsiders the meaning of dispossession.

Chapter Six, Liquid Field of Dreams, distills the research and theoretical positions into a series of projective spatial projects. The chapter is further subdivided into a design brief, construction, and assembly studies, followed by three design typologies, their network, and a conclusion. This chapter presents an aspirational glimpse into re-thinking cooperation and agency for fisherwomen, through the building and management of water devices in their villages.

In the words of Matthew Gandy, a geographer and urbanist, “water lies at the intersection of landscape and infrastructure, crossing between visible and invisible domains of urban space”4. Although waters flow and form aqueous links between terminals, the increasing opacity of their containers obscures that relationship, polarizing them into scenic and commodified waters, as landscape and infrastructure. The Global North and urban zones in the Global South have been popularly identified and examined for such latent flows, with the aim of questioning spatial production through the tension of water as nature and technology5. While the urban canvas exemplifies the contradiction of landscape and infrastructure for scholars such as Gandy, this dissertation argues that this contradiction is significantly heightened in rural contexts and for women – the geographically and sociopolitically other. Current ‘developmental’ projects directly administer infrastructure (processed through decades of urban histories) to rural contexts, producing uncanny and alien environments that are in stark contrast to the natural landscape and sensibilities of the rural subjects, particularly women.

Unlike the subterranean nature of water infrastructure in the Global North, the Global South has a much more tactile conception and spatial relation to how it sources water. Whereas in the West – and in urbanised zones the world over –water flows through pipes and valves, in remote and rural areas of the Global South there is continued dependence on bodies, buckets and basins. Female bodies, specifically, are at the heart of this reality. And so, questioning water rituals and their associated spaces in these contexts is inherently a feminist issue, which requires a re-formatting of Gandy’s binary of infrastructure and landscape, to a triad between infrastructure, landscape, and female bodies.

4 Matthew Gandy, The Fabric of Space: Water, Modernity, and the Urban Imagination, First MIT Press paperback edition (Cambridge, Massachusetts London: MIT Press, 2017), 1.

5 Gandy, The Fabric of Space; Nikhil Anand, Hydraulic City: Water and the Infrastructures of Citizenship in Mumbai (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017).

infrastructure landscape female bodies

To examine this relationship, the dissertation situates itself within the wider socio-ecological discourse around small-scale fisheries in South Asia: communities that are marginalised. These settlements, identified in the coastal regions of eastern India, were selected for this study for three reasons:

Rupture in Social Systems

Inherent Socio-Political Marginalization

Multiplicitous Relationship to Water

Drawing on literature by environmentalists, sociologists, activists, and anthropologists, the dissertation develops a spatial case on small-scale fisheries around Lake Chilika, a coastal lagoon situated along the Bay of Bengal in Odisha, India. Since the 1990s, these fisheries have faced rapidly devolving socio-ecological conditions, resulting in an intense social, economic, and spatial dispossession. Within this marginalization of an entire community, the dissertation argues, the most dispossessed is the fisherwoman, who has historically been viewed as a support, or the other. The dissertation seeks to examine their rituals, protocols, and spatial consciousness, specifically in relation to water, in order to situate them as protagonists in rebuilding agency for themselves and, by extension, for the wider fishing community.

To research such remote settlements, specifically through an anthropological lens of the feminine, field work was conducted in the months of October 2022 and March 2023. Extensive visits were made to the village of Khatisahi, with supporting information collected from the villages of Biripadar, Noliapatana, Berhampur, Balia Anla, Rasakudi, Malud and Khirisahi. Although there is a plethora of literature for the context in the realm of environmental studies, geography, and sociology, which have proven to be crucial secondary sources, there was a gap in the spatial registration of these communities. Photographs, videos, interviews, and observations were gathered during the fieldwork to address this, providing a new scope for studying marginalised fisheries of Lake Chilika – a spatial one.

In a context where the relationships between vulnerable and protected, natural and man-made, and wet and dry challenge their supposed binary nature, existing as they do on a spectrum between two extremes, the dissertation seeks to re-evaluate the relevance of development projects that are rooted in histories of infrastructure and modern water. Such large-scale projects are predicated on systems of reliability and consistent operation and management; conditions that are alien to and visibly non-existent in such remote and marginalised areas. Focussing on fisherwomen and their water rituals, the dissertation seeks to construct specific spatiality determined by corporeal functions of washing, defecating, and drinking. For instance, the idea that kitchens are spaces for cooking and cleaning utensils is challenged in these settlements: kitchens are located in proximity to the house, used almost exclusively for cooking, and are kept dry; washing utensils is a separate activity which is located further away from the domestic space, and closer to water sources.

The research reveals that water rituals are not centralised activities limited to the interiors of the domestic but are instead a scattered series of points and vectors in the village landscape. Constructing an invisible constellation of rituals based on situated knowledge, these forms of living inherent to fisherwomen extend the limits of domesticity into a wider network of commons and extreme sharing. Responding through an intervention of architecture-scale devices, the project seeks to spatialise the acts of water living and their associated network. Instead of determining development against a universal truth, Precarious Waters leverages seemingly precarious conditions into advantages for building agency in the community. Utilising locally sourced materials, such as palm-leaf, bamboo, jute, nets and ropes, the project is predicated on self-building and re-building. These processes allow fisherwomen to have control over their structures in the face of such inevitable events as cyclones and water fluctuation and enable them to preserve a traditionally sustainable form of knowledge and to operate relatively independently of top-down facilitation by the state or nongovernmental agencies.

Outdoor Water Structures, Gender and Privacy

Re-structuring of daily life due to out migration in fishermen

Role of Architectural Design for socially, economically and geographically marginalized fisher women

Female Body Politics

Commoning and the Invention of Possession

Spatial Response to Local Network of Water(s)

Decentralized and Collectively produced of water structures

Collective MGMT of Water Infrastructures

New Type of Space: InterStructure Zone

Wash Fresh/Lake Water Fresh/Lake Water Fresh Water Grey Water Black Water Private Semi-Private Fresh Water Public Defecate Drink

Gradient of wetness: challenge binary of wet/ dry, natural/man-made, vulnerable/protected

Disciplinary Question(s)

What is the role of architecture and urban design in spatializing agency among dispossessed women in marginalised communities?

How can re-thinking spaces of water rituals of marginalised groups become the vehicle for challenging top-down planning structures?

Typological Question

How can type be extracted and constructed through an evolution of situated rituals and bodily movements, rather than through built examples?

Settlement Question

To what extent can decentralised spatial nodes of water structures become a collective form of water security at the village scale, whilst providing new spaces of communication and care?

Research Aims

To explore the relationship between subaltern female bodies and the production of localised water equipment in the context of remote fishing villages

To develop a design methodology that embraces precarity in the context, by learning from the situated knowledge of the fisherwomen.

(page left) - fig. 005: figure-ground of Rasakudi Village. Drawn by Author.

fig. 006: location of Chilika Lake on the Political Map of India.

Drawn by Author.

6 Traditional fishing communities have mainly derived their livelihoods from fishing activities. Their occupation has given them their historical class position within the Hindu caste system. Regardless of contemporary occupational displacement, their caste remains essential in how they socially identify.

7 S. Mishra and Joygopal Jena, ‘Migration of Tidal Inlets of Chilika Lagoon, Odisha, India -A Critical Study’, 2014, https://www.semanticscholar.org/ paper/Migration-of-Tidal-Inlets-of-Chilika-Lagoon%2C-India-Mishra-Jena/ d15c42a2e1d9541a3958ba4ac730ea5eb669d5f0.

8 ‘Chilika Lake - UNESCO World Heritage Centre’, accessed 14 March 2023, https://whc.unesco.org/en/ tentativelists/5896/.

The dissertation focusses on traditional fishing communities6 of Chilika Lake, located on the eastern coast of India in the state of Odisha. Chilika Lake is Asia’s largest brackish water lagoon and an ecological hotspot, being arguably the largest Indian site for wintering migratory birds, not to mention a haven for large populations of crustaceans, fish, Irrawaddy dolphins, as well as being one of the pre-eminent nesting sites for Olive-Ridley turtles7. Chilika Lake was listed as a Ramsar wetland of international importance in 1981 and included in the Montreux Record (Threatened List) in 1993 following fundamental changes to its ecosystem8. Chilika Lake, also referred to as Chilika Lagoon, is an extremely shallow body of water and its annual tidal flux ranges from 0.2m to 2.4m. Considering that the deepest parts of the lagoon are around 5m, a 2.2m change in water level has a dramatic effect on the ecology and landscape of the lake.

fig. 007: illustration of seagrass. Drawn by Author.

fig. 008: location of 11 traditional fisher revenue villages. Krushnaprasad Block, Puri, Odisha. Drawn by Author.

fisher revenue village non-fisher revenue village Block Administration Boundary

9 ‘Environments || Chilika Development Authority’, accessed 14 March 2023, https://www.chilika.com/ environments.php.

10 See Appendix A and C; Prateep Nayak, ‘The Chilika Lagoon Social-Ecological System: An Historical Analysis’, Ecology and Society 19, no. 1 (17 January 2014), https://doi. org/10.5751/ES-05978-190101.

State: Odisha

District: Puri

Block: Krushnaprasad

GP: Ramalenka

1. Kuanarpur

2. Patanasi

GP: Siandi

3. Noliapatana

GP: Bada Anla

4. Rasakudi

7.

According to the Chilika Development Authority (CDA), the three distinct communities contributing to and depending on the lake’s resources are the fishermen (traditional and non-traditional), the farmers living around the lake, and those dependent on forest resources for fuel/timber requirements9

While Chilika supports the livelihood of around 400,000 traditional fishers and their families, living across 150 fishing villages10, this dissertation focusses on 11 fisher mouzas (revenue villages) located in the inter-tidal coastal mudflats, which fall under the Krushnaprasad Block in the District of Puri, in Odisha state. These villages are susceptible to greater precarity due to their extreme geographical isolation in a watershed along the Bay of Bengal. The 11 fishing villages are defined by their mouza boundaries set by the Block Tehsildar (land-based tax collector). These are Kuanarpur, Patanasi, Noliapatana, Rasakudi, Kandaragaon, Alandapatana, Biripadar, Khirisahi, Khatisahi, Maensa and Berhampur. The 11 fisher mouzas are surrounded by 85 nonfisher mouzas

Of these 11, the 5 villages of Noliapatana, Biripadar, Khirisahi, Khatisahi and Berhampur were the site for the field work of this research. Extensive research was carried out in Khatisahi, due to the co-operative nature of participants, proximity to the boat docking station and the availability of secondary information sources. Fieldwork was undertaken in September-October 2022 and February-March 2023, to study the context in its varying ecological conditions between the monsoon and dry seasons.

fig. 009: Khatisahi Revenue Village. Krushnaprasad Block, Puri, Odisha.

Drawn by Author.

11 See Appendix B for the list of 96 Mouzas in Krushnaprasad in the Tehsil Office. Villages marked with a small ‘f’ are the fishing communities.

diagram 2.1: structural system of governance in villages of Krushnaprasad Block, Puri District.

The mouzas at times contain smaller village clusters, and when most of those clusters identify as traditional fishing communities, then the entire mouza is classified as such. Similarly, there are other neighbouring mouzas that contain micro fisher settlements; however, those are predominantly comprised of non-fishing communities. An example of this is the fishing hamlet of Balia Anla, that falls under the Nuagaon mouza of Titipa Gram Panchayat. While Balia Anla is a Nolia fishers hamlet, the mouza it falls under is predominantly populated by non-fishers. Of the 96 mouzas in the mudflats of Krushnaprasad Block, there are, therefore, only the abovementioned 11 that can be classified as fishing communities.

This distinction is complex to understand and is made further opaque as there are no official records of such social differences. Ultimately, an oral account of the distinction between the 11 fishing and 85 non-fishing mouzas was provided by an old office worker of the Krushnaprasad Tehsildar Office11. While these social distinctions may seem irrelevant since both the fishers and non-fishers engage in fishing activities along the coastal mudflats – the research will reveal socio-political discrepancies between the two that have led to a marginalization of the minority group – the fishers – particularly its women.

Krushnaprasad Block

gram panchayat(GP)

revenue village (mouza)

ham

let/settlement

2.2 FISHERWOMEN AND DISPOSSESSION

In this context, the dissertation demonstrates that fisherwomen are the most socio-ecologically vulnerable. While the dispossession of fisherwomen varies at intervillage and intra-village scales, there is a consensus on their precarity regarding food, shelter, and income. Synthesizing interviews, observations and secondary sources, the reasons for their dispossession can be broadly attributed to a loss of traditional skill and unemployment.

The first, loss of traditional skills, has been a slow development over generations of increasing dependency on men’s employment status and ‘modern’ forms of living. These two tendencies have led to a decline in the women’s ability to engage in activities related to fishing such as cleaning, drying, and salting. Further, it has negatively affected their abilities in roof thatching and building with mud/clay.

The second, unemployment, is closely related to loweducation levels, lack of work opportunities close to the villages, caste-based limitations in work selection, and decline in requirements of fish drying, salting, and selling. Since fisherwomen have traditionally supported the fishermen by processing their catch, a decline in the fishermen’s trade is key in understanding the dispossession faced by fisherwomen today.

The re-structuring of fisheries, especially since trade liberalization in the 1990s, has forced a larger percentage of fishermen to out-migrate to urban areas for work opportunities, leaving more women in the village for varying periods of time12. This has generated a shift in social relations within the villages, where the female members have become de-facto heads of their households13. Although most men send money back to their families in the villages and visit periodically, there is a fundamental repositioning of familial values; in some instances, the physical separation has led to men abandoning their village families altogether. Eventually these reasons have combined to generate socio-economic precarity among fisherwomen, centred on shelter, food, and

12 Prateep Kumar Nayak, ‘Fisher Communities in Transition: Understanding Change from a Livelihood Perspective in Chilika Lagoon, India’, Maritime Studies 16, no. 1 (15 November 2017): 21, https://doi.org/10.1186/ s40152-017-0067-3. Nayak elaborates on the general trend of out-migration in fishing communities. He cites the case of Berhampur, where 53% of households have pursued out-migration as a livelihood strategy since 2001.

13 Marina Laudazi, Gender, and Sustainable Development in Drylands: An Analysis of Field Experiences (Rome, Italy: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 20). Laudazi’s study extends to Burkina Faso, Niger, Senegal; China, India; Morocco; South Africa; Sudan and indicates that an increase in women’s management, organization skills and decision-making responsibilities increased as a direct result of providing an income to their families. Interviews and observations from the field visit supported the conclusions from Laudazi’s report in the context of fishing communities as well. Women in the fishing communities of Lake Chilika are starting to occupy a greater role in the management of their families and daily household activities. In these cases, the extenuating circumstances position women as heads of their households.

fig. 010-019: stills from 'Woman Fills Her Bucket in Noliapatana". October 2022.

Source: Author.

fig.

social responsibility.

In response to, but not limited to, such cases of marginalization of women across the state, the Odisha State Government has promoted a micro-finance system called WSHG (Women’s Self-Help Group). The purpose of these grass-roots organizations is to provide women with employment opportunities and equip them with useful skills, so that they can contribute to the productive workforce. The state government provides these groups with subsidies to kickstart their endeavour and continues to aid them through interest-free loans. These groups usually self-organise into groups of 8 to 20 members, raise loans from the local government and invest the funds in income generating activities, like spice-mixing, wheat grinding, fish drying, etc.

However, interviews conducted in Noliapatana, Biripadar, Khirisahi, Khatisahi and Berhampur revealed that although women raised loans for activities such as grain-processing machines, pond polyculture and fish drying, these funds were actually utilised by the fishermen to buy boats, nets, equipment, etc. This subordination of women’s resources to the perceived occupational superiority of men has resulted in a loss of structured ‘productive’ work among women, and a linear decline in knowledge of local craft. In other instances when the women applied their funds for an WSHG activity, for example spice mixing, it soon became apparent that these activities were redundant and did not lead to any actual profits. In summary, although WSHGs work conceptually through the micro-financing models, they do not function sustainably within the fishing communities of this study.

020-029: stills from 'Woman Walking to take a bath". October 2022. Source: Author.

supply of rice/ grain from govt.

WSHG

machines for grain processing

subsidies for pond-polyculture

subsidies for fish drying/sorting

food precarity

inability to fish + related activities

dependence on external support

loss of local skills

DISPOSSESSION AMONG FISHERWOMEN

inability to build with mud/clay

low education

lack of opportunity

unemployement

inability to thatch social limitations

shelter precarity

out-migration among men

reduction in fish drying, salting, etc

economic precarity

decline in fish catch

reduction in fish in Chilika

increase in aquaculture farms

diagram 2.2: roots of dispossession among Chilika's fisherwomen.

To be able to find work outside of their villages on their own accord is an even greater challenge for fisherwomen. At times, there are specific social factors that prevent fisherwomen from being involved in income-generating activities. In the village of Khatisahi, where the fisherwomen belong to the Khatia caste, social structures prevent them from leaving the village for income generation; they have traditionally been relegated to the limits of their homes and village communal areas14. In other instances, caste positions exile women to activities like becoming daily wage labourers, as is the case with women belonging to the Khandra caste of Birirpadar15

Considering the expanding social role of fisherwomen, their growing presence (unlike the out-migrating men) in the functioning of village life and their proactive efforts in selforganizing through SHGs, they remain underrepresented in public spaces and decision-making, which prevents them from further developing their agency16.

In response, the dissertation positions spatial interventions as a method for the fisherwomen to re-possess agency in conditions of extreme marginalization. Supported by interviews and observations from the fishing communities, the thesis argues that fisherwomen are bodies that choreograph the socio-spatial fabric of their villages and are therefore, cornerstones to the future development and survival of the fishing communities.

14 Fatima Noor Khan, ‘Women and Environmental Change: A Case Study of Small-Scale Fisheries in Chilika Lagoon’ (Master Thesis, University of Waterloo, 2017), 21, https://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/ handle/10012/11265.”plainCitation”:”Fatima Noor Khan, ‘Women and Environmental Change: A Case Study of Small-Scale Fisheries in Chilika Lagoon’ (Master Thesis, University of Waterloo, 2017

15 Khan, 22.many lagoons around the world have experienced environmental degradation resulting from impacts of various drivers of change (e.g., natural disasters and aquaculture Interviews with several women in Biripadar during the field visit in 2022 confirmed Khan’s findings that they engaged in daily wage labour activity as their only source of income to support their families. Middle men, also known as the contractors, arrive in Biripadar and solicit them for nominal wages and transport them to nearby non-fisher villages. These work opportunities are sporadic, unreliable, and exploitative.

16 Vineetha Venugopal et al., ‘Commoning Coastal Odisha’ (Bengaluru: Dakshin Foundation, 2021), 25.

fig. 030-39: stills from 'A fisherwoman cooking on an outdoor stove'. Noliapatana. October 2022. Source: Author.

17 Venugopal et al., 3.

18 Salinization of land has led to a decline in soil quality in these coastal island areas, leading non-fishers to adapt to marine activities like fishing, prawn culture, etc, for subsistence.

19 Venugopal et al., ‘Commoning Coastal Odisha’, 5. The Government of Odisha began leasing brackish waters to non-fishers in the 1980s, following the increasing global demand for shrimp.

To contextualise the position of the fisherwomen, it is of paramount importance to address the social conflict between the communities of fishers and non-fishers that has increased since the 1970-80s. While Chilika Lake supports the livelihood of around 400,000 traditional fishers, it has also indirectly supported around 800,000 non-fishers, who belong to higher castes and have historically engaged in farming, forestry, and other occupations17. Over time, the non-fishers have increasingly engaged in aquaculture and capture fishing due to a degradation of land-related resources in the coastal mudflats as well as for financial reasons, leading to conflicts of interest with traditional fishers18. And so, today, both communities operate within the same occupational ecosystem of fishing to some degree and rely on Chilika’s limited resources for survival.

Although scholars popularly identify the 1990s as the beginning of conflict between the two groups, attributing it to the policies of trade liberalization and aquaculture in1991, it can be argued that these relations began to disintegrate a couple of decades before that. Social conflicts between the fishers and non-fishers escalated in the 1970s and 80s, when the non-fishers began encroaching upon waters managed by the fishers19 .

fig. 040: fishermen of Khatisahi drag- net fishing. Khatisahi. March 2023.

Source: Author.

fig. 041: illustration of a tiger shrimp. Drawn by Author.

This type of forced alienation was defined by Maarten Bavinck as “the contested appropriation of coastal space and resources by outside interests”20, which disrupt the operations of self-governed Common Pool Resources (CPR), which form what American Political Scientist, Elinor Ostrom, popularly discusses as the ‘Commons’21. Popular Oriya cinema, such as Chilika Teerey (1977), are indicative of the commonplace awareness and representation of the conflict. Even before the crisis of the 1990s, concerns on managing CPRs began emerging because of overfishing, specifically with non-fishers using unsustainable practices such as motorised boats and nylon nets.

While traditional fishers, due to the caste system, have historically associated their entire identity with their vocation, the non-fishers engage in fishing for economic reasons. This became problematic for the fishers because the nonfishers occupy a higher position in the Hindu caste-based hierarchical system, leading to the de facto supremacy of the non-fishers and subsequent ability to displace the fishers.

In the context of Krushnaprasad, fisher communities occupy the lowest class positions, live separately from other caste Hindus, and face a general isolation in the societal structure. The caste system is deeply ingrained in the social customs of the place. For example, the village of Khatisahi literally translates to ‘Street of Khatia’, where Khatia is the caste name of the people. The caste further determines the group’s specialised activities. In the case of the Khatia community, they traditionally specialise in using nets for fishing. Similar specialization is seen in other fishing communities: the Khandra of Biripadar use traditional traps called dhaudi or thattas to catch crustaceans, the Nolias of Noliapatana specialise in drag and cast nets for marine fishing, and so on.22 While traditional fishers use such artisanal techniques for fishing, the non-fishers oftentimes use environmentally exploitative methods such as zero-nets to make gheri bandhs (large enclosures of fine-mesh nets that catch juvenile fish

20 Maarten Bavinck et al., ‘The Impact of Coastal Grabbing on Community Conservation – a Global Reconnaissance’, Maritime Studies 16, no. 1 (December 2017): 30, https://doi. org/10.1186/s40152-017-0062-8.

21 Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, Canto Classics (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2015).

22 ‘Environments || Chilika Development Authority’.

23 . See Government of Odisha, “Orissa Prevention of Land Encroachment Act”, (1972).

fig. 042: cadastral map no.95, Berhampur Village, 1963.

Source: Krushnaprasad Tehsil Office.

that block ecological flows) and dike-constructed ponds for intensive aquaculture. Because of such unsustainable practices over the years, the natural catch of the lake has dramatically declined, forcing fishers to abandon their trade and out-migrate.

Additionally, fisher communities possess minimal lands compared with non-fishers, a fact easily ascertained from the cadastral maps of the villages obtained from the Tehsil Office and Odisha Remote Space Applications Centre (ORSAC). Being located close to the lake embankments, these lands are further compromised by their intense saline quality and are categorised as Class IV, i.e. ‘Other Non-Cultivatable Land’. According to the definition of One Standard Acre Land in Odisha, one would need to possess 5.5 acres of Class IV land to qualify as One Standard Acre23. The maps indicate that fisher families usually have legal rights to no more than 1 or 2 acres of Class IV land, making it difficult for them to raise loans for equipment, leasing of aquaculture ponds, investments, etc.

The earliest recorded evidence of a formal organization of Fishers’ rights to Lake Chilika can be traced as far back as the early 1500s24. Until the early 20th century, the Lake’s areas were controlled by Kingdoms that ruled these parts of Odisha and were solely reserved for the use of caste-based fisherfolk. In a system called bheti or salaami, fishers were expected to pay taxes to the zamindars, i.e., local landlords, who reported to the King. It is crucial to note that from 1803-1930, the Lake was managed by the King of Parikuda, who ruled out of his palace in the coastal mudflats of Krushnaprasad25, where this research is located. Even under the years of British Governance (1930-47), the traditional fishers’ rights were protected through the creation of Primary Fishers Co-Operative Societies (PFCS) and the construction of a Co-Operative distribution centre in Balugaon. Being the only ones entitled to Chilika’s resources for generations has formed a deep connection between traditional fishers, the lake waters, and their caste-based identity, called Matsyajibhi.

24 Nayak, ‘The Chilika Lagoon Social-Ecological System’.

25 Nayak, 4.

fig. 043: Krushnaprasad Garh (Palace), Constructed by Raja Sri Bhagirath Mansingh. Established 1798. Krushnaprasad. September 28, 2022. Colour 35mm Film. Source: Author.

26 After Indian independence in 1947, an open auction for Chilika’s waters began under the control of the Administrative Services between the years of 1953-59.

27 See fig.X for a detailed account of a timeline of traditional fishers’ land rights.

28 Matilde Adduci, ‘Neoliberal Wave Rocks Chilika Lake, India: Conflict over Intensive Aquaculture from a Class Perspective’, Journal of Agrarian Change 9 (17 September 2009): 484–511, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.14710366.2009.00229.x.

A disruption of their rights, which begins to unfold in the middle of 20th century, has naturally generated a sense of alienation and marginalization for a community positioned in the lower ranks of the Hindu caste system26. Specifically, the period after 1960 marked a decline in traditional fishers’ autonomy in managing the lake’s resources, when the State Government dramatically increased lease costs, replaced co-operative societies with Governmental agencies and most importantly, allowed non-fishers into Chilika27. In 1964, the Chilika Matsyajibhi Mahasanga (CMM) was established, and represented the unionization of fishermen against informal credit networks, wherein they were economically exploited by socially mobile classes of non-fishers28. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, the CMM continued to advocate for better conditions for the fishing communities, especially by protesting against wholesale distributors of their produce.

fig. 044: During an inspection of shrimpnets at 6 am with a fisherman from Rasakudi Village. Rasakudi. September 28, 2022. Colour 35mm Film. Source: Author.

Governmental policies continue to remain complicit in the polarization between these two social groups. FISHFED29, the governmental agency that replaced PFCS, allocates 50% brackish water leases in Chilika to the fishing communities to protect their right to the Lake and manage a stable income source. However, in practice, the water areas leased to fishing communities are forcefully taken over by nonfishers for nominal prices. And since the non-fishers are politically influential, they strongarm the fishermen into complying in exchange for receiving nominal payments from the profits they incur. As documented by scholars such as Nayak, Adducci, Samal and Meher, and through interviews conducted for this dissertation, fishers have continually explained that even a miniscule legitimization of non-fishers’ rights to Chilika spirals into a web of illegal practices.

In reference to this reality, the 2015 document released by the Fisheries & ARD Department Government of Odisha contains a fundamental error30. The document proposes the division of brackish waters among large scale business and small-scale fishers, co-operatives, SHGs and those below the poverty line. As aforementioned, in the context of Chilika, all these marginalised groups are often represented by the fishing communities, and so the document effectively divides the lease between fishers and others. Such policy frameworks promote separationist practices, rather than those based on cooperation and mutual benefit, which in the case of Common Pool Resources (CPRs) is paramount.

29 Odisha Fisheries Cooperative Corporation Ltd “(FISHFED) is an apex body of all Primary Fishermen Cooperative Societies in the State, which looks for the socio-economic interest, as well as welfare of the poor fishermen of the state.” Source: https://odishafisheries.nic.in:8443/?p=childmenupagecontent&pg=5

30 See Appendix D and diagram 2.3.i

diagram 2.3: division of brackish water leases in Chilika Lake.

Lease of Brackish Water

Areas in the Odisha

district level committees assess land suitable for brackish water pisciculture. suitable lands will be evenly divided between category 01 and category 02.

1. beneficiaries of antipoverty programs

2. persons below poverty line

3. fishermen by profession or caste

4. landless persons w/ >40,000 annual income

5. marginal farmers

1. educated unemployed persons

2. Self Help Groups

3. Primary Fisherman Cooperative Societies (PFCS)

4. Women Cooperatives

1. partnership firms

2. technical entrepreneurs

3. state owned corporations

4. companies/exporters registered in orissaW

segregation between social groups begins at the very inception of the process of aquaculture, when the state itself bifurcates land and water based on type and scale of the intended practice – a process by which existent divisons are intensified via polarity and conflict.

diagram 2.4: timeline of land rights and historical events from 19th century Odisha.

diagram 2.5: definition of one-standard acre in Odisha.

045-54:

01. KUANARPUR

04. RASAKUDI

02. PATANASI

05. KANDARA GAON

03. NOLIAPATANA

fig.

figure-ground studies of 11 traditional fishing communities in Krushanprasad, Puri, Odisha.

06. ALANDAPATANA

09. KHATISAHI

07. BIRIPADAR

10. MAENSA

11. BERHAMPUR

08. KHIRISAHI

brahmandeo village

chilika

table 2. 4.i.: village statistics. source: State Census 2011.

*PWS: Piped Water Supply scheme. Department of Rural Development, Govt. of Odisha.

Map Legend

fig. 057: Settlement plan of Kuanarpur village. Drawn by Author.

fig. 056 Location of Kuanarpur Revenue Village in Krushnaprasad Block.

chilika

2.4.ii. PATANASI

4.ii.:

*PWS: Piped Water Supply scheme. Department of Rural Development, Govt. of Odisha.

Map Legend

fig. 059: Settlement plan of Patanasi village. Drawn by Author.

fig. 058 Location of Patanasi Revenue Village in Krushnaprasad Block.

table 2.

village statistics. source: State Census 2011.

siandi village

chilika

fig. 060 Location of Noliapatana Revenue Village in Krushnaprasad Block.

2.4.iii. NOLIAPATANA

Noliapatana presents an exceptional case, where the size of the community is very small, with a disproportionately large area of brackish water31. Through interviews with residents, it was determined that all the brackish water within the village has been sub-leased to a local businessman. A fisherman from Noliapatana explained that working with this man was quite suitable to his current position of out-migrating as, “At least this way we have a reliable income source.” In other instances, fishermen appeared afraid or reluctant to speak out against the current conflict, and on the flip side there were those who were enraged by this marginalization.

cyclone shelter public tube well

table 2. 4.iii.: village statistics. source: State Census 2011.

*PWS: Piped Water Supply scheme. Department of Rural Development, Govt. of Odisha.

31 The population of Noliapatana (without considering data on out-migration) is 145. The area of the village is 457 acres, of which 0.37% is dry land and 99.63% is brackish waters and other forest and beach areas.

fig. 061: Settlement plan of Noliapatana village. Drawn by Author.

Map Legend

jagrikuda village

badadanda village

chilika

table 2. 4.iv.: village statistics. source: State Census 2011.

*PWS: Piped Water Supply scheme. Department of Rural Development, Govt. of Odisha.

Map Legend

fig. 063: Settlement plan of Rasakudi village. Drawn by Author.

fig. 062 Location of Rasakudi Revenue Village in Krushnaprasad Block.

khatiakudi village

chilika

table 2. 4.v.: village statistics. source: State Census 2011.

*PWS: Piped Water Supply scheme. Department of Rural Development, Govt. of Odisha.

065: Settlement plan of Kandaragaon

Map Legend

fig.

village. Drawn by Author.

fig. 064: Location of Kandaragaon Revenue Village in Krushnaprasad Block.

alanda village

chilika

table 2. 4.vi.: village statistics. source: State Census 2011.

*PWS: Piped Water Supply scheme. Department of Rural Development, Govt. of Odisha.

Map Legend

fig. 067: Settlement plan of Alandapatana village. Drawn by Author.

fig. 066: Location of Alandapatana Revenue Village in Krushnaprasad Block.

kamalsingh village

chilika

2.4.vii. BIRIPADAR

The settlement plan of Biripadar is a prime example of economic precarity resulting from irregularities between the physical settlement and its cadastral boundaries. As seen in this case, most village homes fall outside of the village cadastral limits and there is little land under the legal possession of this community. The leasable waters under their legal rights are all subleased to non-fisher communities.

table 2. 4.vii.: village statistics. source: State Census 2011.

*PWS: Piped Water Supply scheme. Department of Rural Development, Govt. of Odisha.

Map

fig. 069: Settlement plan of Biripadar village. Drawn by Author.

fig. 068: Location of Biripadar Revenue Village in Krushnaprasad Block.

fig. 070: Location of Khirisahi Revenue Village in Krushnaprasad Block.

Map Legend village buildings

cyclone shelter public tube well

table 2. 4.viii.: village statistics. source: State Census 2011.

*PWS: Piped Water Supply scheme. Department of Rural Development, Govt. of Odisha.

*. Sneha Krishnan, Building Community Resilience to disasters in WaSH (water, sanitation and hygiene) during recovery, (UCL, 2016). 166.

2.4.viii. KHIRISAHI

Khirisahi is a medium sized revenue village, under the Berhampur Gram Panchayat (GP). It has been classified as an island settlement typology and has 26 hand pumps and 1 pond*. According to ORSAC, there are no tube wells or freshwater sources in this village.

fig. 071: Settlement plan of Khirisahi village. Drawn by Author.

gurubai village

chilika

table 2. 4.ix.: village statistics. source: State Census 2011.

*PWS: Piped Water Supply scheme. Department of Rural Development, Govt. of Odisha.

073: Settlement plan of Khatisahi village. Drawn by Author.

Khatisahi is a medium sized revenue village, under the Nuapada Gram Panchayat (GP). Nuapada GP also includes the villages of Anlakuda, Barunakuda, Gurubai, Janhikuda and Nuapada — all non-fishing communities. Khatisahi is, therefore, a minority in its GP.

Map Legend

fig.

fig. 072: Location of Khatisahi Revenue Village in Krushnaprasad Block.

water tank

chilika

Map Legend

table 2. 4.x.: village statistics. source: State Census 2011.

*PWS: Piped Water Supply scheme. Department of Rural Development, Govt. of Odisha.

075:

fig.

Settlement plan of Maensa village. Drawn by Author.

fig. 074: Location of Maensa Revenue Village in Krushnaprasad Block.

water tank

chilika

chilika

table 2. 4.xi.: village statistics. source: State Census 2011.

*PWS: Piped Water Supply scheme. Department of Rural Development, Govt. of Odisha.

fig. 077: Settlement plan of Berhampur village. Drawn by Author.

Berhampur is a medium sized revenue village and is also a Gram Panchayat (GP) for the villages of Bhabanipur, Khirisahi, Maensa and Parala. Three of the five revenue villages of this GP are traditional fisher settlements, making it a strong centre for their community’s interests.

fig. 076: Location of Berhampur Revenue Village in Krushnaprasad Block.

Surrounded by non-fisher communities, the 11 fishing communities are compact, grow outward from primary circulation spines and have an immediate connection with Chilika. An embankment or dike surrounds the settlements like a wall, separating the village from the lake and protecting it from water influx. As a buffer, the lands on the inner side of the embankment are lower than central areas where the homes are built.

These internal buffers or depressions in the soil fill up, eventually forming permanent internal ponds, colloquially called pokhari. These buffer zones are used as washing and bathing areas. Although many residents, specifically the females older than 10 years of age, have stopped bathing in the collective ponds, they have constructed privately financed tube wells in their backyards that lie in the same buffer zone.

By cutting a section through the village of Khatisahi, a pattern between water functions, privacy and topography begins to emerge.

The outer edges of the embankments, which are the furthest from the village settlement, get used as open-defecation spots in the absence of toilets. After surveying the village with the help of residents of Khatisahi, it was seen that more than 50% of the population do not have constructed toilets.

Regardless of the fluctuation in seasonal water or the implementation of new standards for water infrastructure, there is a spatial organization embedded in these villages that provides insight into water rituals and use.

fig. 078: Settlement Section of Khatisahi Village. Pre- Monsoon Season.

fig. 079: Settlement Section of Khatisahi Village. Post- Monsoon Season.

There are three zones for defecation along the embankment. Two are used by men and boys, and one by women and girls.

“When a man passes by, I normally just stand up very quickly and look away. After he passes, I sit down and continue my business…I feel insecure and ashamed, but I have no other choice”. – Jhilli Jaali, 26. Khatisahi Village, March 2023.

According to government GIS records, water in Khatisahi arrives through three public tube wells distributed centrally across the village.

However, all three tube wells are dysfunctional to some degree. The first is completely defunct. The second, is unsuitable only for construction purposes like mixing cement. And the third, can only be used for washing purposes as it became unsuitable for drinking around 5-6 years ago. The local government agency informed the residents that an unusual amount of iron had contaminated their tube wells, making it unsuitable for drinking water.

Instead, families of Khatisahi must walk an hour to the nearest village to collect drinking water, which is managed by women, especially in cases where they have become the de facto household heads.

fig. 080: Key Map of Khatisahi Village.

fig. 081: Settlement Scale Plan. Khatisahi Village.

fig. 082: Existing Water Use overlayed on a Natural Features Map of Khatisahi Village.

fig. 083: Existing Water Use overlayed on the Settlement Map of Khatisahi Village.

(overleaf) fig. 084-89: walking along the dike. Six views from Khatisahi, Biripadar and Noliapatana Villages in the monsoon and winter.

Confining the investigation to an architectural lens limits the capacity of the research in identifying forms of living in the context of Chilika’s fishing villages. Since “architectural culture tends to prioritise aspects associated with the static properties of objects: the visual, the technical and atemporal”32, a generic architectonic reading of spatiality in the aqueous context becomes limited. The research method is therefore more concerned with the experiential, addressing it specifically through temporality, transformation, and native knowledge. In expanding from ‘Architectural’, associated with buildings, to ‘Spatial’ allows for a prioritization of “values outside the normal terms of reference of the economic market”33. This association has been instrumental in constructing a marginalization of certain communities, which is the crucial problem this dissertation seeks to confront.

Additionally, the thesis argues that utilizing only traditional architectural tools of research, such as archival drawings, architectural precedents, and the like, leans into a phallogocentric perspective of spatial-temporal conditions that negates the female lens. To develop an understanding of the feminine condition in space-time, specifically of marginalised cases in the Global South, warrants Participatory Research Methods (PRM) into the conceived, lived, and used spaces of women (See Chapter 6 for a detailed exploration).

Such a theoretical approach does not impose itself on the context; it is the context that necessitates it. The fishing villages of Chilika challenge traditional architectural practice through their ephemeral conditions, created by both environmental and social variability. Maintenance, adaptation, and re-construction is fundamental to the village environ – necessitating non-static and re-constructable space.

32 Nishat Awan, Tatjana Schneider, and Jeremy Till, Spatial Agency: Other Ways of Doing Architecture (Abingdon, Oxon [England] ; New York, NY: Routledge, 2011), 27.

33 Awan, Schneider, and Till, 28.

Built form or lived spaces in the design aim to be mediators between communities and the fisherwomen and the waters they interact with. They perform not just as infrastructural devices but become nodes for knowledge sharing – a key component in the design as the re-generation of knowledge becomes a way of responding to precarity by re-building informational agency. Furthermore, the network that materialises performs not as a wall, but as a threshold for negotiation with stakeholders beyond the village community boundary (these may be other communities, local administration, or even centralised infrastructure such as water supply).

The design embraces precarity by situating itself outside hyper-security, an expectation fabricated by modern water infrastructures. To address precarity through situated sensibilities, the spatial propositions of this thesis acknowledge the inevitability of flux to better prepare for it, rather than contest it.

The designs of three water equipment, explored in Chapter 6: Liquid Field of Dreams, aim to initiate a platform in generating social agency for fisherwomen, and by extension their entire community. In material goals, the project first aims to spatialise existing rituals relating to personal water use. Second, it advocates for alternatives to the current developmental framework by responding through situated knowledge.

Domesticity in these communities can be understood as a collage of diffused spatial protocols across the settlement. Although families have identifiable and individually constructed homes, those spaces and the external areas transform through the day leading to dynamic spatiotemporal rhythms. What appears to be private and singular is, at many times, communal and collective.

The homes can broadly be classified into two types –individual box (A) and composite linear (B). The linear type is a sequential arrangement of multiple rooms along a corridor, which grows from a communal spine towards a buffer zone in the back. The box type opens directly to a communal street, locally called sahi, and does not benefit from a privately connected enclosure or yard space. Neither of these types is equipped with an internal water supply.

The closest water sources to these homes are either communal hand pumps (Type A) or privately constructed tube wells in backyards (Type B). At times, both conditions overlap due to the presence of an aquifer, creating a hybrid water source; public hand pumps in backyards (photograph of Noliapatana). In many cases, though constructed from the personal funds of a family, tube wells are functionally communal to a certain extent, reflecting an environment of extreme sharing.

Both types have an external raised platform that faces the communal street and functions as the heart of daily activity in the villages. Structurally, the platform provides a foundation and protects the homes from water influx during the monsoon, but it also provides shaded outdoor living areas that are used for almost all day-to-day activities from studying, cooking, sleeping, storage, conversing, net-making, eating, and the like.

living areas

kitchen

corridor/platform

water sources

communal spine

buffer/dike

chilika other homes

type A : individual box

type b : composite linear

fig. 090: Figure-ground diagram of Residence Type A: Individual Box.

fig. 091: Figure-ground diagram of Residence Type B: Composite Linear.

fig. 093: Floor Plan of Residence Type B: Composite Linear

2.5. ii. outdoor kitchens

fig. 094: Floor Plan of Outdoor Communal Kitchen.

2.5. iii. platforms

fig. 095: Floor Plan of Street-Facing Domestic Platform.

2.5. iv. wells

fig. 096: Elevation of Communal Hand-Pump/Tubewell.

2.5. v. peripheral dikes

fig. 097: Lakeside Dike: a buffer to separate brackish waters from the village settlement.

The five elements (typical residence, communal kitchen, street facing platform, hand pump and dike) compose and frame the morphology of a collective micro-settlement. In the section below, a typical street of Khatisahi was partially scanned, photographed, and re-drawn to stitch together these elements to showcase the existing condition. The street is solely comprised of Residential Unit Type B, and is therefore, a secondary street in the community. The streets where Residential Type A open directly are the main arteries of the village.

water source dike

fig. 98: Location of Spatial Registry through a Section of a typical Sahi (Street) in Khatisahi.

2.6 MATERIAL PRECARITY

Living in an environment of fluctuating waters and heavy seasonal rain, the fishers have established traditions of rebuilding their built environment and have adapted specific forms of living to sustain their lives. For example, after the cyclone season of May–September, the fishermen would usually re-thatch the roofs of their homes to repair the inevitable damage from wind and water. However, as mentioned earlier, due to an increase in men’s out-migration, the traditional craft of thatching is declining.

Since the onset of the modernisation project in newly independent India, the urban elite have transmitted an image of progress through an “ostentatious display of exposed concrete”34. This imaginary of a material and its associated modernity and elitism continues, even 76 years after independence, largely due to its unfinished promise in rural India. Therefore, due to the promise of relief-aided homes constructed out of aspirational materials like brick and cement, there is a further reluctance among women in learning the men’s craft techniques. Though there are some women who possess this knowledge, they belong to older generations, meaning that this is essentially a dying craft.

Field research revealed that almost all projects which were dependent on government funding remain unresolved; this support from the state is greatly influenced by the extreme cost of transporting industrial materials to these remote villages. Instead of providing funds upfront, the government relief funds are dispatched after construction in the form of reimbursement. The upper limit on the financial aid varies between 3 and 3.5 Lakh Rupees (£3,000-£3,500), whereas the actual minimum cost of reconstructing a house is between 5 and 6 Lakh Rupees (£5,000-£6,000). This gap is often too large for the fisher families to bridge, trapping them in a Catch-22 situation where broken shelters remain unrepaired for extended periods of time.

34 Martino Stierli et al., eds., The Project of Independence: Architectures of Decolonization in South Asia, 1947-1985 (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2022), 10.

fig. 99: Annual roof-thatching. Noliapatana Village. October 2022. Source: Author.

fig. 100: Vacant Site: where a house once used to be. Khatisahi Village. October 2022. Source: Author.

The house that used to be on this site was blown away by Cyclone Phailin in 2013.

A major construction issue, as mentioned by Mr. Manoj Kumar Naik (Block Development Officer of Krushnaprasad), is the time and cost of transporting building materials like cement, gravel, and kiln-fired brick to the coastal villages, since they are separated from the mainland by a large expanse of water. Minority groups, such as the fishing communities, are further compromised as their sociopolitical marginalization results in reduced access to the scarce materials. Situated in an isolated group of islands entrenched in political conflict, construction resources are filtered out as they trickle down to the grassroots level of the mouzas, with houses remaining unbuilt/unrepaired for several years.

For example, a family in the village of Khatisahi lost their home to Cyclone Phailin in 2013. Relief aid did not arrive for years after the natural disaster, and renovations to the house were still in progress at the time of the research. Therefore, finding alternatives to industrial-grade materials is crucial to achieving spatial security in these villages. The dissertation does not dismiss the use of materials such as cement, iron, and factory (kiln) produced brick altogether, but presents materials that can be considered as serious alternatives, as a method to resist precarity and marginalisation.

Another alternative to the question of materiality is to reinvent how certain materials are sourced or produced. For example, in the case of bricks, instead of relying on factory produced red brick, they can be produced on-site using clay and soil. A technique for this has been developed further south along the east coast of India at the Auroville Earth Institute. They have been developing manual machines and standardised CSEB35 equipment since 1995, which can be used by unskilled labour due to its easy operation36. The institute has developed hollow interlocking blocks specifically for disasterprone areas, which have been recognised by the Government of Iran (earthquakes), and the state government of Gujarat (earthquake) and Tamil Nadu (tsunami relief). Cyclones, being the greatest threat to the built environment around Chilika, warrant such construction methods and knowledge to percolate into the context.

Although the basic modules generated by the Auram Press can be used in any construction, the Dry Interlocking 300 block requires no mortar and is most effective in disaster resistance and should be used in portions of the design that can least afford to be compromised37. The Auroville Earth Institute has developed this technology in the context of the Indian subcontinent as an alternative to regular concrete modular blocks because they are relatively cheap and are ecologically sustainable. The use of the Auram Press is a process that can seamlessly integrate into the existing framework of WSHGs in the context of Chilika Lake.

35 Compressed Stabilised Earth Block (CSEB)

36 See Appendix E for a catalogue of CSEB produced with the Auram Press in Auroville, India.

37 Auroville Earth Institute Webmaster, “Auram Equipment Introduction,” Auroville Earth Institute, https:// www.earth-auroville.com/auram_earth_ equipment_introduction_en.php.

Other material that can be used in construction are bamboo, coconut coir, palm leaves and laterite soil (mud), which are all found locally and can be used as potential sustainable materials. Palm trees grow naturally in the environment in abundance as they thrive in saline areas. An average bamboo plant takes 6 months to reach a height of 25m and weighs approximately 11kgs, making it a relatively light, convenient, and sustainable material to construct with. Currently, bamboo is supplied sporadically to the villages, with some of them growing their own bamboo. If bamboo were to be adopted as a fundamental construction material, incentives could be provided to propagate bamboo plantations in the villages themselves.

(page left) - fig. 101: figure-ground of Kandragaon Village. Drawn by Author.

MACRO-WATERS

In the words of Canadian geographer Jamie Linton, “modern water can be defined as the dominant way of knowing and relating to water, originating in Western Europe and North America, and operating on a global scale by the later part of the twentieth century”38. This conception of modern water has become a litmus test for development and progress, which blatantly disregards the specific limitations and advantages of distinct environments. In the context of the Global South, specifically India, there are deeply embedded religious and spiritual customs with respect to waters, which are in opposition to the rational and scientific conception of ‘modern water’. Disadvantaged by systems that are rooted in Western capitalist structures, socio-economically vulnerable communities in such contexts remain mired in a ‘lack’ of water infrastructure. John Stanmeyer’s hard-hitting National Geographic photographic series ‘Water Everywhere, and Nowhere’, on water usage in India, is testament to these very contradictions of how modern water infrastructure leads to a furthering of subaltern dispositions.

While the element of water itself is a neutral entity, its re-organisation into the circuitous flows of 19th century European urbanisation resulted in a systematic ordering of relations between the body, urban form, and water39. Driven by capitalist urbanisation, water transitioned from its elemental state to an instrumentalised resource, a tradeable commodity. Inextricable from this period of rationalization and the subsequent commodification of water is its association with the word ‘infrastructure’. Infrastructure, literally meaning substructure, was first used in 1870s France in the construction of railways and rapidly became a ubiquitous economic instrument40

38 Jamie Linton, What Is Water?: The History of a Modern Abstraction, Nature | History | Society (University of British Columbia Press, 2010), 40, https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/ book/distributed/W/bo69984671.html.

39 Gandy, The Fabric of Space, 29.

40 Keller Easterling, Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space, Paperback edition (London New York: Verso, 2016).

fig. 102: Cover of 'Water Everywhere, And Nowhere'.

Source: John Stanmeyer .

41 Matthew Gandy, ‘The Paris Sewers and the Rationalization of Urban Space’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 24, no. 1 (1999): 23.

42 Lisa Björkman, Pipe Politics, Contested Waters: Embedded Infrastructures of Millennial Mumbai (Durham: Duke University Press, 2015).

fig. 103: Plan of The Karl Mueller Public Bath House, Munich, Germany (18971901).

Source: Paul Gerhard, 1908.

Georges Haussmann began the first modern water project in the 1850s, just a couple of decades prior to the introduction of the term ‘infrastructure’, as part of the urban plan of Paris, in the form of a network of sewers41. Through the processes of accumulating and distributing capital across space, water infrastructure projects such as canals, dams and pipelines engage in a form of territorialization, administrating land and subjects through a capital power structure42.

In contrast to the mega-scale projects of the 19th century, water infrastructure’s ability to compartmentalise into the most compact corners of the domestic, closely shaping human subjectivity and protocols in its wake. A spatial paradigm in the domestication of water was the development of the individual bath, which came to be called a ‘shower’.

As seen through historic examples of European public bathing equipment between the 1800-1900s, the act of cleansing the body with water was reserved for the middle and upper classes. Though bathing was originally viewed as recreational – and therefore, exclusive – the continued densification of urban centres led to crowded housing estates becoming breeding grounds for disease, which meant that there was a strong need to ‘cleanse’ the poor as well. And so, the act of bathing in the Western context began absorbing new meaning during the period of the industrial city. Public bath projects for the working classes, specifically in rapidly growing urban centres like New York and London, began proliferating under the guise of equal access to resources. A critical analysis of this bathing typology reveals the subjectivities knotted into ‘modern water’.

In the specific case of late 19th century New York, the construction of People’s Baths was a socio-political manoeuvre aimed at controlling disease in overcrowded tenements, and ultimately preserving the productive health of the metropolis. While these baths, which were equipped with rows of shower cubicles, are often considered to have evolved from the public baths of Germany and England43, the closer parallels are the ‘spray baths’ in German military barracks, as well as those in French prisons and mental institutions. Instead of a leisure imaginary, the public baths for the working class in New York were time controlled and police patrolled spaces designed to institutionalise bodies through the medium of water and sanitation. The use of spray baths or showers in the context is a direct result of spatial, but also maintenance, efficiency. While the bath house typology provided a platform for collective use of a novel water apparatus (shower) to cleanse the bodies of a specific social class, it most importantly became a tool for normalising and moralising the idea of cleanness. With their genesis located in protocols of control, modern water apparatuses and their associated spaces have led to the simultaneous abstraction of human bodies and water.

43 William Paul Gerhard, Modern Baths and Bath Houses (New York, NY: Wiley & Sons, 1908).

fig. 104: Ground Floor Plan of Hicks St. Baths, New York. 1903.

Source: Author. 2021.

fig. 105: Thermal Spray Bath in Mental Asylum. France, 1880. Source: Unknown.

44 “Water in India - India’s Water Crisis & Sanitation Issues in 2022,” Water.org, accessed March 15, 2023, https://water.org/our-impact/where-wework/india/.

By the 20th century, through its all-pervasive nature from the domestic to the global, from proximity to alienation, the commodification of water through infrastructure solidified a spatial framework and collective conscience of rituals and protocols. A global project running parallel to this development was the colonial campaign. The technologies and abilities of infrastructure fit perfectly with the colonizing goals of extraction and territorialization. In the case of India, the British Raj heavily invested in communication, logistics and infrastructure. However, these projects were constructed with economic maximization of the Empire in mind, rather than progress for the indigenous population. The resulting landscape of the post-colonial world, specifically in relation to water infrastructure, is a fractured reality. Today in India, while countless technocratically successful projects of dams and water purification plants exist, 91 million people do not have access to safe drinking water and 746 million people lack access to basic household sanitation facilities44.

The failure of colonial spatial exports to the Global South are apparent in such discrepancies within infrastructure space, which generates unique yet equally troubling environments in urban, rurban45 and rural landscapes, specifically for women. Unlike 19th century developments in the Western context, where nouveau water infrastructure and its associated spatiality introduced a relative social equivalence, discrepancies in their application amplify existing the socioeconomic fractures of the Global South. This failure is often attributed to a lack in financial resources; however, a closer understanding of cultural aspects reveals a more complex reality.

The commodification and subsequent parceling of water within the domestic space is not purely a spatial exercise, but a cultural and sociological one as well. In the South Asian context, specifically in India, the colonial imports of architecture and planning were met with strong resistance regarding the metaphysical realm of wetness (the clean and unclean), as they are epistemically embedded in religious beliefs. As elaborated on by political writer Ravichandran Bathran, “the introduction of the water closet from Europe in the early twentieth century could not replace the entrenched Indian practice of using dry latrines”46. Although the technologies of modern sanitation have partially altered such practices, there remains a strong spatial alienation –specifically of toilets – from the domestic in rural areas, as a direct product of the Hindu caste system. Furthermore, modern sanitation facilities of toilets have quite commonly been rejected in favour of open defecation; not due to a lack of resources or of education, but due to entrenched beliefs, values and norms surrounding purity, pollution, caste, and untouchability47.

45 “Shyama Prasad Mukherji Rurban Mission,” National Portal of India, accessed March 12, 2023, https://www. india.gov.in/spotlight/shyama-prasad-mukherji-rurban-mission.A ‘Rurban cluster’ is a cluster of geographically contiguous villages with a population of about 25000 to 50000 in plain and coastal areas and with a population of 5000 to 15000 in desert, hilly or tribal areas.

46 Ravichandran Bathran, ‘Politics of Space of Indian Toilet: Extreme Binaries from Untouchable to Touchable’, 325, accessed 6 March 2023, https://www.academia.edu/58505430/ MANAS_RAY_ravichandran_bathran_ THIRD_PROOF_VOL_1_.

47 Diane Coffey et al., ‘Understanding Open Defecation in Rural India: Untouchability, Pollution, and Latrine Pits’, Working Paper (London: International Growth Centre, December 2016).

48 Coffey et al.

49 Bathran, ‘Politics of Space of Indian Toilet: Extreme Binaries from Untouchable to Touchable’, 327.

However, it is paramount to understand the gender-skewed lens such information is filtered through. According to men, who determine the finances of their households, open defecation is concomitant with purity and strength while pit-latrines are associated with impurity and pollution48. In stark contrast, for women, open defecation is an act fraught with tension; consequently, they identify isolated moments of the day (for example, before dawn) or travel in groups to avoid being sexually harassed49. Although no instances of sexual harassment were reported in the fishing villages which were visited for the research of this dissertation, the fisherwomen expressed a marked discomfort with open defecation because of a lack in privacy and the associated embarrassment. In certain cases, female members of some households resorted to constructing make-shift toilet enclosures out of branches and cloth.

To challenge the socio-spatial asymmetries present in the discourse of water as infrastructure, “Precarious Waters” seeks to disassociate from spatial paradigms of 19th century European water infrastructure. The project does not simply reject modern solutions or suggest an anti-modern project for fishing communities. As seen in case studies of malaria in Lagos, where leaking roofs and open latrines caused life-threatening diseases, the project does not seek to glorify antiquated and obviously unsanitary processes for water management. It is a purely spatial exploration of how, regardless of access to modern infrastructure, the existent socio-cultural water rituals of fisherwomen can be adapted into specific architecture and urban design, which can ultimately improve their lives.

(page left) - fig. 106: figure-ground of Alandapatana Village. Drawn by Author.

fig. 107: two fisherwomen return with drinking water at dusk.

Khatisahi Village. March 2023.

Source: Gaurav Sawhney.

“If, in the context of colonial production, the subaltern has no history and cannot speak, the subaltern female is even more deeply in shadow.”

- Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Can The Subaltern Speak?

The polarization effects of such a systemic proliferation of macro waters are felt most by the subaltern woman, especially those who can be identified as the rural poor. Because implicit in the conception of spatial practice is the tendency for a “systematic and violent erasure of the contributions of women, femininity, and the maternal”50. To include the feminine, her history and knowledge into the research of subaltern spatiality requires an expansion from traditional architectural research methods of precedent analysis and archival mapping.

By utilizing Participatory Research Methods (PRM) and observing rituals and practices of fisherwomen, this dissertation adopts X-ray mapping techniques to capture layers of lived experiences in the context of Chilika’s fishing communities. Through such methods, the research reveals that although there is not a complete erasure of women from spatial production, there is a pattern of women re-adjusting their [wet]-spaces based on the absence or presence of men. In a socio-spatial context, the feminine is indeed the “other” gender or sex.

In three separate sessions with women and girls of Khatisahi between the ages of 10 and 38, focus groups of drawings and interviews regarding water-use were conducted. The findings of the sessions were as follows.

50 Grosz, Space, Time, and Perversion, 121.

Fig. 102 shows the central tube well in Khatisahi, which has been declared unfit for drinking purposes due to the excessive presence of iron. The blue drums to the left of the image are barrels of drinking water that have been transported to Khatisahi from the Shiv Temple in the neighboring village of Gurubai. This represents two key points:

1. there is a level of co-operation between disparate social groups (villages) that is mediated through a commoning of water.

2. the tube well, although defunct to a degree, remains a key spatial marker in water collection and storage.

fig. 108: Kabita Sethi's mother-in-law walks home after collecting water from the communal tube well. Khatisahi Village. March 2023.

Source: Author.

In maps drawn by fisherwomen in October 2022 (fig. 103-05), they consistently indicated external wet spaces for personal, as well as collective use. For example, the tube wells were frequented not just for their own needs, but to collect water for the household. Young girls between the ages of 10 and 12 mentioned that they had already begun assisting their mothers in household chores like cooking, washing dishes and clothes and collecting water.

A second, and more comprehensive, study was conducted in March 2023 with students between the ages of 9 and 11 at the Government Primary School of Khatisahi. Students from both genders were asked to participate, to gather comparative data. The first drawing prompt asked students to draw a day in their lives, and the second asked them to spatially map their village of Khatisahi. Short interviews were conducted after each drawing exercise.

In the maps from the second exercise (figure 109-11), it can be observed that both girls and boys drew multiple water sources such as tube wells and ponds. However, in the first exercise (figure 106-08), the girls indicate the use of only tube wells for their own water needs (figure 106 and 107).

Through the interviews, the girls explained their discomfort bathing in communal ponds after the age of nine or ten. They also expressed a visible unhappiness in not being able to equally access the ponds for swimming and playing, with no choice but to bathe in the private spaces of their backyard tube wells and platforms. And so, it can be said that the other-ing of women, from a very early age, stems from spatial alienation — in this case, from spaces of water.

tube wells (drink) ponds/bushes (wash/defecate)

fig. 109-11: Scans of Hand Drawn Maps of the Village Settlements by married Fisherwomen in their 20s. October 2022.

fig. 112-14: Drawing exercise 1. Scans of Hand Drawn Maps of Daily Rituals by children. March 2023.

fig. 115-17: Drawing exercise 2. Scans of Hand Drawn Maps of the Village Settlements by children. March 2023.

51 Khan, ‘Women and Environmental Change’, 22. many lagoons around the world have experienced environmental degradation resulting from impacts of various drivers of change (e.g., natural disasters and aquaculture

52 Deepa Joshi and Ben Fawcett, ‘Water, Hindu Mythology and an Unequal Social Order in India’ (Second Conference of the International Water History Association, Bergen, 2001).”event-title”:”Second Conference of the International Water History Association”,”publisher-place”:”Bergen”,”title”:”Water, Hindu Mythology and an Unequal Social Order in India”,”author”:[{“family”:”Joshi”,”given”:”Deepa”},{“family”:”Fawcett”,”given”:”Ben”}],”issued”:{“date-parts” :[[“2001”,8]]}}}],”schema”:”https://github. com/citation-style-language/schema/ raw/master/csl-citation.json”} In their paper, Joshi and Fawcett indicate that existing communal inequalities persist when actual asymmetries are replaced with false expectations of egalitarianism and altruism. Weaving the existing social norms and customs are crucial in constructing authentic policy frameworks and propositions.

Using information gathered from the hand-drawn maps, interviews and observations, a spatial matrix of water rituals for the villages can be constructed. Table A (overleaf) represents the water rituals of all residents in the villages, while Table B (page 125) represents those of only the women and girls. The tables were constructed by analysing the locations of these water practices and their physical location in the communities. It is evident that women have access to far fewer spaces in the village for conducting their needs related to water, even though they constitute 53% of the village population; this number remains consistently higher in daily life considering the increasing out-migration among young men51.

Women in these villages use the lakeside dikes for open defecation and disposal of their menstrual waste. Not all women in the village use commercially bought products such as sanitary pads; instead, they utilise reusable cloths that they wash along the dikes as well. The practice of cleansing menstrual waste overlaps with the act of washing with water, rather than collecting plastic or paper items to be disposed in a dry waste basket. The monthly pattern of menstruating affects the sanitation level of not only the individual body, but also of the spaces and objects that body is associated with. For example, when a woman is menstruating, she is forbidden from entering a temple, the kitchen, or common bathing areas – specifically those that are shared with men. Furthermore, the fisherwomen explained that they did not clean and sort fish during these days and remove all marriage symbols (marriage necklace and sindoor, a vermillion powder worn on the hairline). Highlighting these invisible, yet impactful, traditions in the community regarding contamination and the female body must be included to formulate appropriate propositions for the community52.

fig. 118: An afternoon of mapping exercises at school with two young girls. Khatisahi Village. March 2023. Source: Author.

fig. 119: Matrix of Water Rituals and their location at Village Scale.

fig. 120: Location of Water Rituals and their location at Village Scale, for women.

For bathing, women most commonly use the backyards behind their homes. In a few instances, the families have constructed private tube wells; others continue to collect water from the communal taps, carry buckets to their backyards and then bathe on platforms slightly raised off the ground. In the case of Khatisahi, according to members of the community, of the 230 households only around 20 have been able to construct modern sanitation facilities such as toilets and showers53. The rest of the community continues to rely on natural and traditional practices for their water rituals.

Although this otherness stems from the inherent patriarchal values of Hindu and sub-continent culture, it is apparent that it is further ingrained through the structural dimensions of their – fishing. The fisherwomen have supported the fishermen in their trade by cleaning, salting, drying, and selling fish. Being satellites to men’s work and purpose has historically positioned the fisherwomen as secondary, or the other.

However, this historical and deeply ingrained structure is in crisis today, which is where the spatially projective aspect of the dissertation finds its roots. Due to a decline in fishing and a subsequent outmigration in men, there is a rupture in the classical family model in the fishing communities, allowing for a re-conceptualization of the role of fisherwomen and their associated spatiality. In response to conditions of occupational dispossession as outlined in Section 2.2., this restructuring of values within the community is charting new paths for women in developing their own agency and voice. These developments fall within the required transformations identified by Luce Irigaray in how women can begin to occupy space differently, ultimately carving their own specific places54

53 A modern sanitation facility in this context refers to a reinforced cement concrete (RCC) structure, which has water supply input and output system. In most cases, the output system is a PVC collection tank, which needs to be emptied periodically. From field research, it was noted that a single RCC toilet costs a minimum of 20,000INR. While the Government has provided a subsidy system that covers 12,000INR, it is only provided once the structure has been constructed. However, most villagers are unable to gather the funds to construct these toilets, and further lack the funds to maintain and reconstruct them because of the inconvenience of sourcing materials like brick and cement.

54 Grosz, Space, Time, and Perversion, 123. Grosz’ reading of Irigaray, on how women can occupy space differently – “a series of upheavals in 1. Organization of personal life, 2. Women’s relations to what is larger than them (the divine, the environment, nature), and 3. Ways in which theory, and cultural production more generally, are regarded.”

fig. 121: A fisherwoman carries a bag of rationed rice home. Khatisahi Village. March 2023. Source: Gaurav Sawhney.

Khatisahi Village. March 2023.

Source: Gaurav Sawhney.

In the village of Khatisahi, a woman named Kabita Sethi was abandoned by her husband, leaving her with three daughters and a mother-in-law. Although the Khatia system traditionally disallows women from leaving the village for economic reasons, the extremity of her condition and the absence of a male figure in the household allowed Kabita the freedom to find stable employment as a janitor at the Government Medical College located an hour away by foot. Although Kabita barely manages to support her daughters’ education and domestic costs, she finds pride and fulfillment in what she is now enabled to do.

During the interview, Kabita revealed how her abandonment story motivated her to work hard and problem solve, instead of accepting status quo. During the field visit of October 2022, Kabita’s mother-in-law explained how they constructed a make-shift toilet using logs and cotton sari fabrics in the absence of a permanent enclosure to defecate. In the visit conducted in March 2023, Kabita was seen building a microhatchery for a flock of chickens using fishing nets, bamboo fencing and ropes in her front and backyard. Her specific case demonstrates how a realignment of authority leads to self-determination in women, with them being more in control of their own life and requirements.

fig. 122: With Kabita Sethi and her mother-in-law at their home.

Compared with Khatia women, who limit themselves to fishing activities of cleaning, drying, salting, and selling, Khandra fisherwomen of Biripadar are experienced trappers and pickers of shrimp and other crustaceans in shallow waters. Furthermore, Khandra fisherwomen are accustomed to travelling long distances from village to village, with baskets on their heads, selling daily catch. The greater scope of their occupational history allows them an inherent flexibility in comparison to Khatia women when finding work. Although their caste position forces them into precarious work such as daily wage labour, they have more opportunities to provide income to their families as a result of their comparative mobility.

October 2023 in Biripadar, a fisherwoman, whose name was never discovered, explained her transition from catching shrimp to sewing clothes to support her family. After the community of Biripadar obtained a brackish water lease on 567 hectares, it was immediately further subleased to adjacent non-fisher classes; a process colloquially referred to as “zabar-dakhal”, which translates to forced interruption55 Not being able to access water for fishing activities, her husband dabbled in several other income generating tasks, finally settling on carpentry.

During four or five turbulent years for the family, her husband (who was born with a disability in his left arm) even contemplated suicide. Being faced with the strong possibility of being a single mother of two, warranted a shift in how she viewed her financial role in the family. Now, though this fisherwoman aids her husband in his carpentry business, she primarily runs her own tailor shop where she sews clothes, toys, and coir mats for residents even beyond Biripadar. In their two-room house, one room is allocated as her workspace, spatializing the integral position she has assumed in the familial structure.

55 Khan, ‘Women and Environmental Change’, 22.many lagoons around the world have experienced environmental degradation resulting from impacts of various drivers of change (e.g., natural disasters and aquaculture

fig. 123: A fisherwoman in her tailor room. Biripadar Village. October 2022. Source: Author.

124: An

Source: Author.

October 2022.

fig.

old widowed fisherwoman cleans dried fish on the site of her partially collapsed home. Khirisahi Village.

(page left) - fig. 125: figure-ground of Biripadar Village. Drawn by Author.

“In this same space there are, however, other forces on the boil, because the rationality of the State, of its techniques, plans and programmes, provokes opposition. State imposed normality makes permanent transgression inevitable”.

- Henri Lefebvre,

The Production of Space, 23.

fig. 126: A dug-well along the banks of Chilika Lake. Khatisahi Village. October 2022. Source: Author.

56 ‘De-Possession’ refers to the deconstruction of possession, wherein the collective and shared is not negative, but a preferred way of operating to protect the community from precarious or fluctuating conditions. The suffix ‘de’ seeks to replace ‘dis’ ahead of possession, to reframe the unfavourable as a natural and pragmatic phenomenon.

As explored in chapter 3, “Macro Waters”, the way in which modern water proliferated has generated a collective condition of imagining water as always belonging to something or someone. Water belongs to either the utility company that processes it, or to the State that controls the source, or even to a landlord who controls the direct valves of distribution, etc. Water is no longer understood as a commons, or a common pool resource (CPR); it is pocketed through possession, subsequently leading to its commodification. This is the expectation that universal spatial knowledge is also predicated on. However, what if this fundamental relation with water were to be questioned? What kind of alternative spatial relations with water and its structures could be produced through acts of commoning and extreme sharing? Through the case of Chilika’s fisherwomen, “Micro-Waters” presents a theoretical interlude that deconstructs the idea of possession in relation to water use, towards a process of de-possession56 .

fig. 127: Bathing area for women in Jhilli Jalli's family backyard. Khatisahi Village. March 2023. Source: Author.

This chapter presents two reasons for challenging the megalith of macro waters. Firstly, the re-organization of social relationships in the fisher communities (detailed in Chapter 4: Fisherwomen and Waters) provides a chasm for fisherwomen to become lead choreographers of spatial production, specifically around gendered acts and practices such as washing, collecting water, and their feminine sanitation needs. This gendered re-organisation towards the feminine provides an opportunity to question water infrastructure embedded in phallocentric origins. Secondly, in response to the socio-ecological depletion of the lake, the dissertation confronts neo-capitalist models of development embedded in spatial solutions by drawing from contemporary scholarship on feminist post-humanism and anti-anthropocentricism. Ultimately, this interlude demonstrates that the possession of water is an abstract convention, which can be demystified by the situated knowledge of subaltern figures, such as Chilika’s fisherwomen.

As observed through the lived experiences of the fisherwomen, universal models that find their beginnings in the 19th century Western industrial city collapse when confronted with socially and spatially differentiated systems57 . The material and management failures of modern water in contexts such as the remote fishing communities are evidence of this. By failing to comply with or succeeding to resist universal templates, regardless how the argument is framed, these communities embody rare spatial realities operating beyond the gargantuan pull of modern water systems: systems that inherently quantify and instrumentalise water towards exploitation and deterioration58

The diffused protocols of water living in the settlements oppose the ubiquitous compartmentalization of water into an opaque dialectic between domestic valves and subterranean infrastructure grids. They further put into question private ownership and the invention of possession of water, by demonstrating extreme forms of sharing such as bathing collectively, openly defecating in overlapping areas, and traveling in pairs or groups to collect water. In contrast to the Western conception of embodiment, which is grounded in discrete individualism and humanism since the enlightenment, re-thinking embodiment as watery, transitory, or fluid allows for a reconceptualization of spatial practice predicated on it as well. The body and its associated space shifts from being thought of as autonomous, to a commons –specifically a Hydro-Commons, in the words of the Australian Environmental Feminist, Astrida Neimanis59.

57 Gandy, The Fabric of Space, 9.

58 Astrida Neimanis, Bodies of Water: Posthuman Feminist Phenomenology, Paperback edition, Environmental Cultures Series (London New York Oxford New Delhi Sydney: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019), 159.

59 Neimanis, 2.

fig. 128:

A woman drawing water from a well. Bani Lal. Patna, India. 1880. Source: V&A.

60 Khan, ‘Women and Environmental Change’, 56.many lagoons around the world have experienced environmental degradation resulting from impacts of various drivers of change (e.g., natural disasters and aquaculture In Khatisahi, during the month of October, fisherwomen explained that they only prepare vegetarian meals because eating fish is forbidden. According to Mrs. Pratima Jena (who was interviewed by Khan), “it is a time for the lagoon to reproduce its resource base”.

61 Joshi and Fawcett, ‘Water, Hindu Mythology and an Unequal Social Order in India’, 1.”event-title”:”Second Conference of the International Water History Association”,”publisher-place”:”Bergen”,”title”:”Water, Hindu Mythology and an Unequal Social Order in India”,”author”:[{“family”:”Joshi”,”given”:”Deepa”},{“family”:”Fawcett”,”given”:”Ben”}],”issued”:{“date-parts”:[[“2001”,8]]}},”locator”:”1”}],”schema”:”https://github.com/ citation-style-language/schema/raw/ master/csl-citation.json”}

62 See Chapter 3: development of the modern bathing equipment in the 19th century Western industrial and urbanising cities of New York, London and Munich.

Waters and their associated bodies transcend even the domain of human corporeality, by intertwining the movements of birds, crustaceans, algae, and a plethora of other living beings in the coastal lagoon60. Furthermore, within the Vedic philosophy of Hinduism, water has been recognised as an instrument that determines socio-spiritual purity and pollution of the human body; these beliefs have led to deeply rooted spiritual and religious practices around water61. AS a result. An interlacing between human bodies, other beings and the metaphysical is established through the medium of water. Furthermore, unlike modern water that is treated and contained into a singular predictable substance, there exists a plurality of water as a result of Chilika’s cyclical flows in the form of groundwater, brackish water, precipitation, and bodily fluids; waters that overlap and intermix, constantly redefining their own constitution.

Furthermore, macro, or modern water is predicated on the development of the urban condition and its associated “productive” subject62. Whereas, the water needs and practices of rural inhabitants, especially against a time axis, are inherently different. Particularly, in the case of Chilika’s fisherwomen who live among aqueous boundaries and have an elemental relationship with waters, re-thinking the individual, concrete and smooth disposition of water infrastructure is vital. Hence, what may appear as quotidian or mundane, i.e., their daily lives, provides critical parameters against which the spatial production of water rituals should manifest.

Even on a national scale, there have been commonplace insurgencies against modern water in the form of tube wells. As written by Anthony Acciavatti in Harvard Design Magazine, “tube wells…are substitutes for the State in terms of non-existent or unreliable municipal water systems”63. Mostly present in the Indo-Gangetic Plains, the presence of tube wells has shaped the sensibilities of fishing communities as well. Although tube wells are most used in the subcontinent for irrigation of agriculture fields, in the case of the fishing communities they were originally sources of drinking water. As awareness of the dangers of saline water proliferated in recent times, fisher families use these wells for washing purposes, and instead travel to neighbouring non-fisher villages to gather drinking water.

In Khatisahi, there are three official tube wells according to GIS information from ORSAC (Odisha Space Applications Centre). According to this State-run technology, these are the only sources of water supply afforded to a village of 875 residents. Field work revealed that even these three sources are either defunct or partially unusable. While one is completely derelict, another is too contaminated for humans to use and is therefore used as a source for mixing cement and other such construction requirements. The third one, located at the heart of the settlement, was declared unsuitable for drinking purposes due to unusual levels of iron present in the source by the local government around 5-6 years ago. In response to the failure of public provisions of water supply, a few families have taken to constructing private tube wells in their backyards. Others, with lower incomes, have situated open dug wells in theirs. Families that do not have the funds or space walk to the central ironised pump and rely on that.

63 Anthony Acciavatti, “From Model Village to Groundwater Earth” in Today’s Global, Harvard Design Magazine, issue 50 (s/s 2022) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Graduate School of Design, 2022), 93.

fig. 129: Three women of varying ages carry water to their home. Khirisahi Village. October 2022. Source: Author.

64 Henri Lefebvre, Donald Nicholson-Smith, and Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 33. print (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2013), 26. ‘(Social) space is a (social) product). Space, inherently a reflection of social networks, must recognize the nuances of lived experiences of the fisherwomen to reflect their values.

Unlike the original promise of freshwater from tube wells, most tube wells present in the fishing villages of Krushnaprasad have become saline due to their proximity to the brackish water lake. In the case of Khatisahi, members of the family (most commonly the women), walk approximately 2 hours to the nearby non-fisher village of Gurubai to collect drinking water in earthen or metallic pots. To address the challenge of fresh water supply to these remote villages, the State Government of Odisha is planning to construct a direct pipeline from a major hydraulic project 200km away in the Ganjam district. Although this project is estimated to be completed by the year 2026, interviews with local stakeholders revealed their apprehension.

Wary of such pipe dreams promised by the State, the subaltern figure continues to operate in a permanent mode of transgression, read through a Lefebvrian lens. The historical spatial organisation of these communities remains a threshold that modern water must continually negotiate. Therefore, instead of forcing locally evolved customs and specificities to comply with its frame, the dissertation proposes a reformation of individualised modern water to fit the [social] space of fisherwomen, which is an extremecommons by design64.

In contrast to the common conventions underpinning modern water, the way fisherwomen in these communities locate, use, share and maintain their sources of water are not transactional. There are shared relations at the scale of the body, community, and larger environment that shape collective social relations through water practice, demonstrating a fundamentally alternative way of living.

(page left) - fig. 130: figure-ground of Khirisahi Village. Drawn by Author.

Source: Author.

“The hatchery is a kind of architecture antitype, i.e., it refers to a kind of built structure, but the structure to which it refers does not belong to the domain of the architect. It is a house, but not architecture, and its relationship to the primitive hut is mediated to the point of extreme tentativeness, primarily because the form of the hatchery is irrelevant”.

- Jennifer Bloomer, Big Jugs, 373.

(page left) - fig. 131 Kabita's hatchery. Khatisahi Village. March 2023.

Often positioned as discrete opposites, land and water are not static, separable binaries; a condition that is clearly revealed in these aqueous settlements situated almost at sea level. Through the development of a constellation of water equipment, the project seeks to address such imagined binaries, of manmade vs. natural, dry vs. wet, protected vs. vulnerable, permanent vs. ephemeral, and infrastructure vs. landscape.

The design project embraces ephemerality in this context as a natural and inevitable condition. It positions the idea of being temporary as a relative one, and thus seeks to redefine vulnerability and precarity for marginalised groups such as these fishing communities.

Spatializing Feminine Water Rituals

Collective Resource Management

Collective Memory + Knowledge of Built Environment

fig. 132: thresholds in water. Noliapatana Village. October 2022.

Source: Author.

Three design types will be developed based on the different personal/domestic uses of the fisherwomen. The three types are 1. washing pavilions, 2. dry toilet chambers, and 3. sheltered fountains. For all three types, varying degrees of privacy and wetness will be constructed resulting in the three key design parameters of gradient of wetness, privacy, and materiality.

Threshold for negotiation between stakeholders, education, mobilizing specific fishing activities (storage, drying, salting, etc)

Threshold for non-human actants - water, birds, insects, plants. facilitates the management of water as a collective (CPR), for its storage and purification (de-commodification)

Collective Memory + Knowledge of Built Environment

table 6.1: design parameter guide - all three design tests were constructed along the spectrum between the following 'opposing' qualities.

Binaries to-be addressed by Design Propositions

Porous

Relatively Temporary

Communal Central Spacious

Opaque

Relatively Permanent Private Isolated Compact

6.2.i. types of water

table 6.2: relationship between source and type of water with specific corporeal uses.

table 6.3: boolean check between water and corporeal use.

Based on local customs, the wet areas can be organised according to their distinct corporeal functions. For example, the distinction of kitchen and bathroom for varying wash purposes is not shared in the fisherwomen’s customs. They would use bathing areas for general washing of utensils and clothes as well. In their context, it is the type of water intersecting with specific areas that determines water activities.

The design begins by studying the intertwining relationship between three functional uses and the multiple waters in the context. This flow diagram between water and use reveals that the drinking fountains and toilets have a terminal condition - with the former receiving water as an input and the latter producing water or liquids as an output. Unlike toilets in the Western context, which have ceramic bowls with floating water, toilets in India have traditionally been dry and water is instead used as a cleansing agent, functioning like a bidet.

6.2.ii. cycle of water movement

Saline Water

Fresh Water

THRESHOLD

WASHING PAVILION

Grey Water

SOILED TERMINAL

SANITATION CHAMBER

Plants

FRESH TERMINAL

FOUNTAIN

Contaminated Water

diagram 6.4: cycle of water flows. this diagram explores the interwoven condition that water presents, and how this aspect of water can inform the spatial considerations of the three new design typologies.

Drinking fountains and toilets are the extremes, or terminals, in the network of water flows. One being an extreme form of sanitation, and the other contamination. Washing provides a middle ground, where clean/saline water passes through it to be used for an alternative function via grey water. Washing can be understood as a threshold activity in the gradient of cleanness and should embody a porous and fluid tectonic compared to a solid or stable disposition of the other two, spatially delineated types. The two functions of the fountain and toilet should be positioned in controlled zones, whereas the washing pavilion can be situated on inter-tidal areas such as the open ponds or dike-protected waters.

fig. 133: Proposed Water Use overlayed on a Natural Features Map of Khatisahi Village.

fig. 134: Proposed Water Use overlayed on the Settlement Map of Khatisahi Village.

6.2.iii. construction and assembly system

The formal aspect of the designs begins from modular elements of bamboo, wood and jute that can be sourced locally and are manageable materials for self-built structures. The basic structural module is a 4-bamboo column, which creates gaps for horizontal pieces to interlock for rigidity. Each bamboo post is roughly 2.7m long and should roughly weigh 1.75kg, a manageable scale for fisherwomen with an average height of 1.53m. The 4-bamboo module will be constructed of 4 of these pieces, with other smaller bits to reinforce it if required. Since an average bamboo plant grows to 25m in 6 months, 2 bamboo modules can be assembled twice a year if required. This construction method is derived from the indigenous knowledge of these communities and encourages not just knowledge sustainability but also incentivises locals to mindfully continue growing bamboo plants in the orchards. This system of interlocking bamboo and jute ties forms the foundation for all three design typologies.

fig. 135: joint assembly test. 1:10 model.

fig. 136: Elemental Bamboo Construction Unit for Design Propositions.

fig. 137: Size of Elemental Bamboo Unit in reference to fisherwomen.

6.3 DESIGN TYPOLOGIES

Departing from the joint and material assembly, three design types adapt the construction system based on privacy, spatial requirements, frequency, and the presence (or absence) of water. To decrease privacy respectively, the toilets, wash pavilion and fountain are equipped with a different number of openings and façade treatments. The toilets have single entrances and are clad all around with bamboo screens. The wash pavilions have two entrances on opposing sides with screen facades also on two edges. Lastly, the communal sheltered fountains are accessible from all sides and have no enclosures on their façade, communicating a greater spatial language of a commons.

diagram 6.5: shows the varied approach to privacy in each type, which is determined by the number of access points. The toilets are most private (singular entry), the wash pavilions are accessible from two ends and the fountains are open on all four sides.

wash pavilion

toilet

sheltered fountain

entrance/exit

fig. 138: section of wash pavilion floating on a pokhari (pond).

fig. 139: section of dike-side toilets. fig. 140: section of communal sheltered fountain.

The first is a floating wash pavilion located in the ponds of the village. Mostly located in the peripheral zones, at times these ponds are located more centrally in the village as well. Through interviews with women, they revealed that they were unable to use the village-centre ponds after a certain age because of the lack of privacy. These structures allow the women to re-occupy spaces that they were naturally forced out of.

fig. 141: wash pavilion floating on a pokhari. Drawn by Author.

The basic unit of the floating pavilion is made using 12 bamboo modules (i.e., 48 bamboo columns of roughly 2.7m each). Each unit is composed of 4 quadrants, which are separated into 2 areas by a linear central circulation platform. The 2 separated zones become identical bathing chambers where one quadrant is covered in a bamboo floor panel and the other is left open.

(page left)

fig. 142: exploded axonometric of wash pavilion structural assembly.

fig. 143: spatial diagram of basic unit of the wash pavilion.

Both bathing chambers are protected by bamboo screens on the exterior side, while the internal divisions along the corridor can be made using cloths as required.

fig. 144: floor plan of basic unit of the wash pavilion.

fig. 145: section through a basic unit of the wash pavilion.

fig. 146: external elevation of the basic unit of the wash pavilion.

fig. 147: 6 wash pavilion units assembled over a water body.

The covered quadrant becomes the platform to bathe on, store clothes, buckets, and other paraphernalia, while the open area allows for immersive bathing and simply water collection.

Both bathing chambers are protected by bamboo screens on the exterior side, while the internal divisions along the corridor can be made using cloths as required.

The simplicity of the structure allows for flexible multiplication and replacement of modules. Eventually the bathing pavilion should begin to take on a hierarchy in its internal organization, determined by its users.

Considering that these communal wet areas, like washing pavilions, are not just for functional purposes, such flexibility and porosity seeks to maintain existing relationships between the fisherwomen.

The drawing on the left hand illustrates a speculative scenario, where six floating wash pavilions are joined together to form an expansive space. Areas hatched in light red indicate circulation corridors, common areas for washing and relaxing, while the platforms marked in dashed lines represent the private zones for individual baths.

By using lightweight partitions such as bamboo screens and cloths, allows the interior areas to constantly adapt to the requirements of its users.

fig. 148: a view through the circulation corridor of the floating wash pavilion.

The second is a toilet module, located in the buffer areas of the embankments or dikes. These areas often have the densest foliage and are relatively the driest due to their purposefully elevated condition. The toilet is constructed around a 10 cubic meter pit latrine, using 4 bamboo modules (i.e., 16 bamboo columns of 2.7m each).

Due to the privacy required for the toilets, the module nests on the slope of the embankment, which is a relatively concealed zone in the village.

The 10 cubic meter pit can be used by 8 individuals for approximately 1 year, after which the pit must be emptied, re-filled with soil, and allowed to decompose for at least 6 months. Meanwhile, the structure will be relocated to a new position along the embankment, where the same process of digging a pit would begin. Over time, the soil along the embankment should re-fertilise allowing for continued and sustainable re-use.

fig. 149: a dike side toilet. Drawn by Author.

(page left)

fig. 150: exploded axonometric of toilet module structural assembly.

fig. 151: spatial diagram of basic units of toilet modules.

fig. 152: plan of the toilet module. stage 1.

fig. 153: section of the toilet module. stage 1.

fig. 154: elevation of the toilet module, from the village. stage 1.

fig. 155: plan of the toilet module. stage 2.

fig. 156: section of the toilet module. stage 2.

fig. 157: elevation of the toilet module, from the village. stage 2.

fig. 158: plan of the toilet module. stage 3.

fig. 159: section of the toilet module. stage 3.

fig. 160: elevation of the toilet module, from the village. stage 3.

The toilet is then not a static and concrete provision, but a temporal and collectively managed equipment. Although the toilets must avoid the influx of water, they repossess precarity through a disposition of planned transience.

161:

fig.

day-time view of the dike-side toilets in the monsoon from lake chilika.

fig. 162: night-time view of the dike-side toilets in the monsoon from lake chilika.

The collective fountain occupies a central position in village dynamics, and is guided by the key words of collection, marker, central, communal and refuge. The construction of this type makes use of 16 bamboo column modules, which are placed in four quadrants around the ubiquitous hand pump. A central aperture in the roof is created for sunlight and to guide rainwater back towards the source.

fig. 163: section through the sheltered communal fountain.

Even when the apparatus of the hand pump goes defunct, these spots remain social centres or markers, and are locations to store drums of externally sourced water.

(page left)

fig. 164: exploded axonometric of sheltered fountain structural assembly.

fig. 165: spatial diagram of the sheltered fountain.

fig. 166: typical plan of the sheltered pavilion.

fig. 167: typical section of the sheltered pavilion.

The covered platforms around these centres make the practice of gathering around the well more intentional. Although it is a terminal, the bamboo structures reinforce the possibility of movement through their lightweight assembly.

The communal fountains are markets of village life but are still dormant in their potential for acting as communal space. These pavilions provide a refuge for women and other residents in their daily process of water collection.

fig. 168: Kabita's mother-in-law walks towards the sheltered fountain on a rainy evening.

fig. 169: liquid field of dreams: plan of a village fragment and a constellation of three water equipments (present scenario). page 202-09.

fig. 170: liquid field of dreams: plan of a village fragment and a constellation of three water equipments (a week later). page 205.

fig. 171: liquid field of dreams: plan of a village fragment and a constellation of three water equipments (8 months later). page 207.

fig. 172: liquid field of dreams: plan of a village fragment and a constellation of three water equipments (a few years later). page 209.

65 Jennifer Bloomer, ‘Big Jugs’, in Gender Space Architecture: An Interdisciplinary Introduction, ed. Iain Borden, Barbara Penner, and Jane Rendell (London: Routledge, 1999), 374, https://doi. org/10.4324/9780203449127. “Hacking at the edges of the architecture/state apparatus, it is all these categories. It is political and collective and moving”.

The design types are not definitive architectural objects to be built but should be read as spatial suggestions for an alternative practice. The wash pavilion, toilets, and sheltered fountains are a spatial response to Bloomer’s metaphor of hatchery65. Ultimately, these structures provide a spatialised canvas for their forms of living to continue to manifest on.

And so, by learning from the fisherwomen, architecture can begin to re-introduce the body itself into the production of knowledge through space.

Typology in the traditional fishing communities is a spatial condition, often without neat distinctions between architecture and urban plans. As demonstrated through the diffused external protocols of fisherwomen in the coastal villages of Lake Chilika, the diagram of domesticity is not contained within architectural types, but forms patterns throughout the natural environment.

This dissertation contributes to spatial discourse in two broad areas: firstly, rural small-scale fisheries in the subcontinent (South Asia), and secondly, body politics of subaltern women and water-infrastructure. Specifically in the context of fisheries situated in Chilika Lake’s widely studied socio-political issues, the dissertation explicitly lists and re-draws cases of traditional fishing settlements – a visual representation that has not been illustrated before. The dissertation was motivated by this gap in knowledge and argues that it is complicit in the socio-spatial marginalization of such communities.

To address these specific cases of coastal small-scale fisheries, type was constructed from the analyses of 11 settlements using a spectrum of methods, which include photography, videos, drone footage, participatory mapping methods, 3d scanning tools, GIS maps, interviews, postindependence cadastral maps, secondary sources on socio-ecological discourse, and re-drawing exercises. The dissertation illustrates typological housing plans, their relationship with settlement circulation and streets, and with the limits of the settlement along the threshold of the Lake and land. A spatial logic for these settlements was therefore extracted.

fig. 173: (page right) illiustration of Chilika from Balia Anla. Drawn by Author.

Furthermore, the analysis of the domestic, specifically through primary evidence from field visits to 5 villages, revealed that water-use in the settlements was external to the residential unit and was especially gender skewed. The dissertation presents the relationship between the physical space of water use and its principal characters –fisherwomen – as antithetical. Situated within the broader discourse of feminist ecologies and phenomenology, the dissertation spatialises these invisible constellations of fisherwomen and their relationship to water, utilising materials, and practices they can build agency through.

The fisherwoman is a hybrid subject. Influenced by fragments of modernization, such as cellphones, electric cables, clothing styles in some instances, they continue to navigate primitive landscapes with an understanding and ease that is incompatible with behavioral norms of an urbanised subject, specifically a Western one. Both the consciousness and corporeal condition of these fisherwomen are shaped by the terrain they negotiate daily – physical conditions that are reinforced through a feedback loop of their spatial behavior and understanding. To be able to address such a specific spatiality and subjectivity, the dissertation questions preconceived positions of sanitation, privacy, collectivity, advantages, dangers, and precarity.

As a response, the propositions presented in Liquid Field of Dreams embrace precarity through their architectonics and are developed through indigenous spatial language. By intentionally resisting male centric construction techniques and materials of rigidity, stability, and permanence, as well as rejecting Western typological evolution of modern water, the home-grown decentralised water creatures across the village are born from situated knowledge of fisherwomen.

fig. 174: Jhilli Jalli's Mother. Khatisahi Village. March 2023. Source: Gaurav Sawhney.

Coastal small-scale fisheries across the subcontinental peninsula have been subject to a socio-economic dispossession, specifically since the modernization and trade liberalization of the 1990s. As a result, a social re-structuring of values has been unfolding, generating a crisis point wherein hybridity can proliferate, and feminine conceptions of value are able to challenge male dominated discourse. This growing presence of women, as demonstrated through coastal fisheries of Lake Chilika, can be leveraged to allow them into constructing, managing, and re-building specific typologies, particularly explored through water-use in this dissertation. The dissertation argues that enriching the fisherwomen with construction know-how in conditions of social, economic, and environmental precarity is what builds their agency. Therefore, ‘spatializing agency’ becomes a research method and an aim/outcome.

Precarious Waters argues for a radical re-sexualization of spatial knowledge to be able to adequately incorporate those operating outside of popular discourse: those who are the so-called marginalised and subaltern. In cases of such seemingly dispossessed and underdeveloped communities, attempting to compare or map their forms of living against the grain of standardised architectural typologies of Western foundation illicit arbitrary tabula rasa solutions. And so, the dissertation positions architecture’s role in the broader framework of analyzing seemingly unplanned settlements and forms of living, by identifying the subaltern as a protagonist in her spatial future. To answer Gayatri Spivak’s landmark question, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’, the dissertation responds with “Yes, if you are listening”.

fig. 175: a cloth drying in Jhilli's front yard. Khatisahi Village. March 2023. Source: Gaurav Sawhney.

fig. 176: figure-ground of Khatisahi Village. Drawn by Author.

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N.d.

fig. 177: figure-ground of Maensa Village. Drawn by Author.

Detailed list of sub-castes of fishers in Chilika. Source: Prateep Kumar Nayak. Chilika Lagoon Social-Ecological System, 2014.

identification of fishing communities within the 96 mouzas of Krushnaprasad.

sub-castes of fishers in Chilika. Source: Chilika Development Authority.

Cover page of the 2015 State Government of Odisha document. Source: The Odisha Gazette.

Aurum Press 300: types of blocks constructed as CSEB. Source: Auroville Centre for Scientific Research

Partial drone footage of a street in Khatisahi. Aerial footage was key in the re-drawing of settlement plans.

This process of quick scanning parts of the village spaces was a crucial tool in recording information accurately and quickly. The application helped in re-drawing plans, recording tactile information of materials, and documenting dimensions.

3D Scans of two dwellings using POLYCAM mobile application.

3D Scans of two platforms using POLYCAM mobile application.

interview questionnaire used in field visit of September-October 2022.

interview questionnaire used in field visit of September-October 2022.

ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE

COVERSHEET FOR SUBMISSION 2021-2023

PROGRAMME: Projective Cities, Taught MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design

NAME(s): Amy Brar

SUBMISSION TITLE: PRECARIOUS WATERS

Spatializing Agency among Dispossessed Fisherwomen of Lake Chilika

COURSE TITLE: Dissertation

COURSE TUTOR: Platon Issaias, Hamed Khosravi

DECLARATION:

"I certify that this piece of work is entirely my/our own and that any quotation or paraphrase from the published or unpublished work of others is duly acknowledged."

Signature of Student(s):

Date: 24th of April 2023

Amy Brar MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design Projective Cities 2021/23