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Small Spaces: Recasting the Architecture of Empire

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View the page of Swati Chattopadhyay

Swati Chattopadhyay opens up an important new approach to architectural history: an invitation to shift our attention from the large to the small scale.

Image courtesy of interviewee. April 15, 2024

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This video video is a transcript of a discussion reflecting on the motivations and intellectual journey behind writing a book that examines the significance of small spaces, particularly in the context of historical architecture and material culture. The speaker, trained as an architect and architectural historian, traces the development of their ideas back over 30 years, influenced by mentors and the study of American historical archaeology.

Key themes include the exploration of everyday objects and spaces, such as the concept of a "bottle cana," which refers to a storage space for bottles, particularly associated with alcohol. The speaker emphasizes the importance of understanding how spaces are experienced differently by various groups — a concept often overlooked in traditional architectural studies.

They argue for a new approach to historical narratives, focusing on overlooked small spaces and their relationships to larger social processes, rather than centering the narrative solely on grand historical events or structures. The speaker aims to uncover the significance and social context of small spaces, analyzing their functions, the people who inhabit them, and how these spaces contribute to broader narratives of history and culture.

The overall goal is to reframe history through the lens of these small yet vital spaces, suggesting that understanding the intricacies of human experience within them is crucial for a comprehensive view of historical and architectural discourse.

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Here are some key quotes from the video that encapsulate its main themes and ideas:

1. **On the Importance of Small Things**:
"In small things forgotten are so many shillings and so many pens...they have value...those are the things that matter."

2. **Historical Convideo of Research**:
"So, um, the what motivated the book was I came across in the archives...I find this term bottle canna...I realized, well, everybody at one point seemed to have known what a bottle canna is."

3. **Significance of Space and Objects**:
"My project is...in the sense that I look at the relation between objects and spaces...what's so peculiar or new about bottles? Well, a lot is new...it has to do with food consumption."

4. **Experience in Architectural History**:
"When we analyze plans, we always presume in sort of an comedian point of view as if there is a uniform complete subject that can vicariously move through this abstract representation."

5. **Diversity of Perspective in Space**:
"No space is experienced exactly the same way by different groups of people. Masters don't look at spaces the same way as servants or enslaved would."

6. **Narrative and Methodology in Research**:
"I wanted to pay a lot of attention to the narrative because I think the narrative matters."

7. **Critical Viewpoint on Empire and Geography**:
"Pressure Empire is a geography of small spaces. It is not the big spaces...when most of the Empire had very little connection with that, actually."

8. **Delinking Traditional Narratives**:
"Strategic delinking...I look for where else can I plug it in to tell a new story?"

9. **On Writing for a Broader Audience**:
"I think we have a responsibility of scholars if the ideas matter that much to make it very clear to reader who's not trained in the discipline."

10. **Reflection on Personal Experiences**:
"Small things matter to all of us, whether we recognize it or not."

These quotes highlight the core ideas discussed in the video related to the value of small items and spaces, the often-overlooked perspectives in architectural history, and the author's methodological approaches in narrative storytelling and historical research.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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So, it's a broad question

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and, it's a good question.

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Uh, the book has been many years in the making,

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and if I have to really trace it back, it goes back

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for over, you know, 30 years, I think.

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Um, I'm trained as an architect first

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and as an architectural historian.

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So, when I entered grad school,

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and this is at Berkeley, I encountered,

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historical archeology.

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And this is American colonial material culture studies

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and historical archeology through the work of Jim Deeds,

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who was one of my advisors.

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And I think it really changed my way of looking at spaces,

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because it was looking at objects

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and how do you pay close attention to objects in terms

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of the historical significance.

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So, I think it goes back to those days.

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Uh, it was very taken by something that,

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Jim d wrote in his book.

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And this book was meant for undergraduate audience going to,

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okay, it's called,

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the book is called In Small Things Forgotten,

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and it's about American historical archeology.

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And he was, he coded, a probate inventory, you know,

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the inventories that are done when somebody dies

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and they're, you know, so you know,

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their property is Eva, you know,

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like tabulated and so on, so forth.

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And, so the people who did those inventories,

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they would write in the, at the end that in small things,

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forgotten are so many shillings and so many pens,

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and so on, so forth, because there are two insignificant

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to pay, you know, two tabulates separately in various,

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you know, big chairs, you know, bedstead, et cetera.

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They have value. So I was very taken by that, and he was,

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and he used to teach that, and I said, you know, sort

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of assigning a little value that we are, you know,

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we might have forgotten, but this nevertheless had value.

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And so that's, that's the, in small things, forgotten.

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And he, he wrote that, it's in the small things,

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which in our, in which our life is measured in some way.

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We, we remember the small things

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after everything is said and done.

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So all those things that accumulate over a lifetime,

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the small things, those are the things that matter.

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And I think really, struck a chord in my thinking.

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Uh, I think I very much was raised by my mother to think

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that, small things matter.

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You know, small gestures matter,

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and, pay attention to the small things.

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You know, it's not, the only way you get

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to the big things is when you attention pay

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attention to the small things.

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But my project is, quite different from Jim Diet

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as well, in the sense that I look at the relation

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between objects and spaces as somebody who's trained

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to look at spaces, that is my primary focus.

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But my question was why haven't these spaces

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that I think are, you know, important,

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actually been looked at carefully?

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So, so, the, what

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what motivated the book was I came across in the archives,

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and, you know, imagine this,

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I'm sitting in the British library looking at tones in terms

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of things, and, you know, also memoirs and all of that.

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And I find this term bottle,

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can I have no idea what that is?

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Like who knows what a bottle can is?

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And then I realized, well, everybody at one point seemed

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to have known what a bottle canna is.

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There's no history of it.

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It happens to be a storage space, you know, the idea

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of keeping bottles.

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And I later I re recognizes to do with alcohol consumption

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and, you know, beverage, but mostly alcohol.

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So you take the idea of bottle

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and canna, it's like a gym kana.

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So it's, it's a, you know, the sort of Indian,

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the Persian Urdu term coming together to produce this kind

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of hybrid, nomenclature, nomenclature matters.

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What do you call spaces matter.

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Um, so I was very taken by it,

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and the fact that I had no idea what this was about,

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because by the time I grew up,

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and I'm talking about, I grew up in India,

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the term had completely fallen out of, you know, use

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so about, and then the archives, I found that,

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even in the 1920s

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and thirties, it was so being used not after that.

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So the terms had changed,

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but you just referred to stor, you know, storage space.

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And it was clearly, I figured something

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that I can imagine Indian servants,

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and it could be very senior Indian servants coming up

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with the term, you know, what do you call this space

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where you keep loads and loads of bottles, you know?

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So it was a new thing in the 18th century. Okay?

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So I kind of patiently tracked it back.

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So in a way, the bottle kind is my entree,

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but clearly I'm not just looking at bottle kind of, but

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because that allowed me to make the connection

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between spaces and objects.

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Well, why are, why what's so peculiar or new about bottles?

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Well, a lot is new. Uh, it has to do with food consumption.

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It has to do with the materiality of the bottles

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that they can be resold, that you need a cork.

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And these are all imported.

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You know, you, you had to import cork from England,

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and, you know, and there was a huge business, I mean,

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some Indian, merchants became extremely rich

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through this business.

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So there was a, actually a separate, apart from the alcohol,

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you know, trade, there was a trade in bottles.

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So those things kind of got me interested.

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Um, but once you get into food,

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which is very interested in food history,

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you recognize it's just not alcohol.

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It has to do with other food materials.

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You know, what is being moved from one

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part of the world to another?

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It just ask started asking. But I would say basic questions.

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Where were they kept? How were they stored?

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How were they moved? Who moved them? Who took care of them?

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I think one of the things that interested me is

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that not simply that, you know, there were, you know,

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massive amounts of, alcohol being traded,

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and they were kept in bottles.

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Um, and, you know, the way alcohol actually would be,

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imported was often not in bottles.

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They were in casks, they were in barrels, you know,

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hug heads, and then, then they would be bottled.

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So I was interested in, how these were moved,

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where they were stored.

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And the interesting thing about these, you know,

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bottle canna as a space is that, they were,

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it was clearly a new space in the sense that,

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that suddenly you have from the 18th century onwards,

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tremendous, scale of, import of alcohol

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that it, it really goes up.

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But what was important about this was not just the alcohol

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that was being, you know, consumed

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or the, the type of alcohol or any of those,

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but the fact that the bottles themselves had an important,

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sort of, trade relation in other,

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they formed a trade relation.

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Uh, bottles were sold by themselves.

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That was a, you know, separate trade linked,

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but separate, of bottles and corks

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because cork had to be imported from England.

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So there is another sort of related trade.

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And, I got interested in, so how do I

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find the, sort of the keepers of these, you know, spaces

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who, who traded them, who, you know, sort of,

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stowed them who, who actually managed this, this,

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sort of trade in the, when it, when you taking it

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to the residences, the hotels, or the spaces of consumption?

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So that's my, sort of the, you know, way

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of thinking about the bottle canna, which again,

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I had no idea what it was about.

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So, you know, as architectural historians,

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we are very good at certain things.

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Um, we are very good at analyzing plans, for example,

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you look at architectural plans,

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and we can make a very sophisticated you

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conclusions from those.

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But there are also problems with that.

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You know, I'm, and I'm thinking about, you know,

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great examples like Robin Evans' work, you know,

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John Michael LA's work reluctance work,

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and I've tried to do the same myself.

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Um, plans really embody social relations.

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We can look at a plan

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and understand how spaces are intended to be used, okay,

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what is primary, what is secondary?

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But when we do that, we rarely,

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as architectural historians think about how

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a space is actually experience

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differently by different people.

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When we analyze plans, we always presume in sort

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of an comedian point of view as if there is a in uniform

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complete subject that can vicariously move

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through this abstract rep representation

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and understand what's happening in these plans, way to move,

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what's the importance on so forth.

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And that's how we teach. The fact is,

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no space is experienced exactly the same way by,

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different groups of people.

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It depends on, what constituency is looking at it.

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Masters don't look at spaces the same way

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as servants or enslaved would.

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It's not complicated. It's actually very basic,

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but we have never quite developed what I would say,

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method to investigate these.

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So that's one aspect, like, you know,

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how do I look at actually small spaces from the point

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of view of those who lived in those spaces,

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managed those spaces, labored in those spaces?

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If I cannot get to their point of view, you know,

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I do not want to obviously sort of, resuscitate

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or, you know, reinforce the dominant point of view

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that is very easy to read off from a plan.

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For example, I'm just talking about a plan

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as an architectural representation.

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But the other thing about what I was doing in terms of,

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and this is the inspiration from partly Jim Diet's work

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or certainly from material culture studies, is

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that looking at relation between objects

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and spaces, there are actually very few

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examples who do that.

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And when you do that, you, come across all kinds of,

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mythological problems about scale, about process,

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about size.

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It, it, it's about, you know,

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what are the questions are you going to ask

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between the relation between, you know,

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objects and spaces.

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Lemme give you a different example.

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For example, thinking of the bookshelves.

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I wanted to know,

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how the bookshelves were socialized into these spaces.

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Spaces, okay. In other words, what happens

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to spaces when bookshelves enter into households

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as furniture as, we, we don't, we are so used

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to bookshelf, we don't think of how they can change space.

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So, that was something that was kind

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of important for me to understand.

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But for that, I had to think about, you know, what do I

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fall back upon in terms of method to think of the bookshelf

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as space, not as an objective space as space.

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What is the, you know, sort

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of the logical spatial order of a bookshelf?

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What does, what do, let's say the 26 bookshelf, you know,

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bookcases that I've mentioned, what do they do

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to a, to a space?

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How do they change them? You know?

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So those are the, I ask,

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I would say strange questions about objects and spaces.

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That's how I get interested in the small spaces of what are,

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and you know, many of these are not small spaces,

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and that's something that also interests me,

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that dimensionally, they're not always small.

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You know, it you, if you, you may not, you

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or I may not be able to live in a bookshelf, right?

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Okay. But we are surrounded by it.

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That means that has a spatial component.

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If we are surrounded, in my case, for example,

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it's a background, but it's a very important spatial

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component of the space I'm in inhabiting

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and the space that I'm projecting

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through this interview, right?

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It's not just a backdrop, you know, this is my,

11:56.805 --> 11:58.285
I keep my Bengali books here.

11:58.645 --> 12:00.605
I, because, you know, my husband

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and I share a lot of books, you know,

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the books all over the house,

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but these are the ones where I keep my Bengali books,

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because I'm the only one who reads Bengali in the household.

12:07.715 --> 12:11.325
Okay? So, so there is a particular resonance

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to this collection, and it, it actually, you know, goes

12:14.405 --> 12:15.485
around the room.

12:16.225 --> 12:20.845
And the thing is that, historically

12:20.915 --> 12:23.245
what happened was that when you move from trunks

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to bookshelves, the collection of books,

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and, you know, in other words, something

12:32.555 --> 12:35.675
of intellectual merit take on a different significance.

12:35.815 --> 12:38.675
And here's an example. The reason I got, you know,

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interested in with the Cha's bookshelf,

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it's a good about a hundred years, 80 years later than,

12:46.215 --> 12:49.755
one incident that struck me historically as very important.

12:50.265 --> 12:51.715
This is the fourth myo war.

12:51.865 --> 12:54.715
It's happening very far from Calcutta, where amlo,

12:54.795 --> 12:58.115
I was looking at this bookshelf, and it's happening in Myo

12:58.415 --> 13:01.475
and Tippo Shan, was just killed.

13:01.975 --> 13:05.835
And his entire palace, is being ransacked

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by the British, you know, colonial army,

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the East Indian companies are,

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and they enter his library, this the state library.

13:14.715 --> 13:17.255
And there's actually a great description of that space.

13:18.075 --> 13:19.565
What, what the library contained.

13:19.785 --> 13:24.005
And it was an explicit comparison made with the bole that,

13:24.585 --> 13:27.725
you know, the books were sort of dumped in,

13:28.475 --> 13:29.845
some larger trunks.

13:29.875 --> 13:32.045
They were in, you know, they were not in bookshelves.

13:32.045 --> 13:34.205
You know, there was not a raid in this manner

13:34.615 --> 13:36.285
where you can look at the spine,

13:36.305 --> 13:38.645
but as we know, you know, the books bookshelves

13:38.645 --> 13:40.245
and libraries have changed a lot

13:40.295 --> 13:41.485
since the ancient times, right?

13:41.875 --> 13:44.565
Because from initially there were manuscripts,

13:44.585 --> 13:46.325
and then you have the book, the more

13:46.325 --> 13:47.765
what we would recognize it.

13:48.345 --> 13:49.365
But books were changed

13:49.435 --> 13:52.445
because, you know, they had to be changed at that time for,

13:52.445 --> 13:54.805
because they were like, these toes, they didn't want to,

13:54.825 --> 13:55.925
you know, they're valuable enough.

13:55.925 --> 13:58.645
They didn't want them to get lost, et cetera, stolen.

13:59.895 --> 14:02.515
But the idea that there is something

14:02.695 --> 14:05.595
of enlightenment value in the bookshelf,

14:07.235 --> 14:11.685
that it creates the space, it is the space of enlightenment.

14:12.425 --> 14:16.925
So you compare the collection of great European libraries

14:17.585 --> 14:21.575
and their beautifully array books just as elite

14:22.925 --> 14:27.345
to say that Sultan was, you know, you know, his despotic

14:27.845 --> 14:31.265
by looking at his library, here is his state papers,

14:31.415 --> 14:34.105
here is his collection of eliminated manuscripts,

14:34.775 --> 14:37.525
which according to these viewers looked dumped.

14:37.525 --> 14:39.365
Well, they were not dumped. They were actually had a

14:39.365 --> 14:42.805
different organizational, sort of repertoire.

14:42.805 --> 14:44.965
It, it had a different order in which they were kept.

14:46.055 --> 14:48.675
So I got very interested in these kinds of

14:49.515 --> 14:53.245
representations about how bookshelves

14:54.065 --> 14:57.805
are not just util utilitarian objects, very key books,

14:58.545 --> 15:02.085
but people's sense of identity deeply,

15:02.425 --> 15:03.565
you know, related to that.

15:04.105 --> 15:07.565
We can think of Walter Benjamin writing about his bookshelf,

15:07.585 --> 15:09.205
the books, his library, right?

15:09.305 --> 15:10.965
You know, it, it's, it's beautiful.

15:12.215 --> 15:13.745
This is something of, you know,

15:14.455 --> 15:17.225
assumed in his, writing.

15:18.275 --> 15:19.575
He takes the bookshelf.

15:20.155 --> 15:21.815
So for granted that he actually

15:21.815 --> 15:23.015
doesn't talk about the bookshelf.

15:23.015 --> 15:25.815
He's talking about taking out the books from the packages

15:25.915 --> 15:27.655
and sort of living with them again.

15:27.655 --> 15:29.335
And it's the pleasure of that.

15:29.355 --> 15:31.815
And we can all get behind that because we love books.

15:33.355 --> 15:36.255
But the bookshelf for him sort of disappears

15:36.255 --> 15:38.455
because they are just bookshelves.

15:39.145 --> 15:41.995
They were not so in many other places in the world.

15:42.935 --> 15:46.985
In other words, they were deeply, you know, imagined

15:55.405 --> 15:59.165
you can, so in a,

16:00.305 --> 16:03.195
this of the book, how the books are kept,

16:04.605 --> 16:07.065
and I'm not thinking of how librarians do it, right?

16:07.065 --> 16:08.625
There's a particular logic when we go

16:08.625 --> 16:10.505
to a library when you see it.

16:11.005 --> 16:13.785
Uh, but I'm talking about, how

16:14.605 --> 16:19.125
we attach a certain kind of spatial identity,

16:20.295 --> 16:23.185
organizational logic to

16:23.725 --> 16:25.385
the books in a bookshelf

16:25.565 --> 16:29.665
and how bookshelves actually generate a spatial ED.

16:30.445 --> 16:33.265
So I'll look at examples where, you know, that,

16:33.535 --> 16:35.945
this reformer educator that I'm talking about

16:35.945 --> 16:38.385
with the Shaer, his authority, how he kind

16:38.385 --> 16:40.185
of surrounded himself with books

16:40.285 --> 16:43.945
and bookshelves was almost quite undone

16:44.125 --> 16:46.865
by this famous encounter with a,

16:47.775 --> 16:50.025
well known 19th century saint.

16:50.165 --> 16:54.625
Um, so there are stories to be told about books, books

16:54.645 --> 16:56.345
and bookshelves, and

16:56.925 --> 17:00.185
before we get to the library, that is, that's my point.

17:00.405 --> 17:03.305
So, you know, and this is goes back to my method, like,

17:03.305 --> 17:04.945
you know, how do I do this, right?

17:05.335 --> 17:07.345
Like, you know, I wanted

17:07.365 --> 17:09.105
to tell a different story of empire.

17:09.535 --> 17:11.345
I've been working on empire for a long time.

17:12.165 --> 17:16.185
So, what, you know, how do I approach it?

17:16.565 --> 17:21.405
One of the things that interested me is that many

17:21.405 --> 17:24.405
of the spaces I'm talking about are indeed small,

17:24.405 --> 17:26.325
dimensionally small, you know, it,

17:26.445 --> 17:29.085
a bottle counter could be something like six by eight

17:29.225 --> 17:31.325
or eight by 10, you know,

17:31.425 --> 17:33.405
modest kitchens of that size, right?

17:33.485 --> 17:35.405
I talk about, and they were called cook rooms in the

17:35.525 --> 17:38.685
colonial, era, because they were not within the

17:38.755 --> 17:40.845
household, they were outside the house.

17:41.425 --> 17:46.245
So they can be quite modest in, in terms of dimension,

17:46.935 --> 17:49.565
but some of them, I'm talking about warehouses,

17:49.635 --> 17:50.845
they're not modest at all.

17:51.035 --> 17:55.115
They're huge. Very few people actually have written about

17:55.135 --> 17:56.555
the spatial logic of warehouses,

17:57.215 --> 17:59.275
and it's quite stunning to think about.

17:59.375 --> 18:01.755
And you think of what is capitalism

18:01.775 --> 18:04.235
and co colonialism without warehouses, okay?

18:04.445 --> 18:05.915
Think of the ones in Manchester.

18:06.245 --> 18:07.875
Think of the ones in Calcutta.

18:07.955 --> 18:09.595
I mean, like, where, where will you go?

18:09.595 --> 18:12.275
Like, there's no way you could talk about a major city,

18:12.275 --> 18:13.555
even though talking about warehouses,

18:13.815 --> 18:16.475
we have very little knowledge about the spatial

18:16.475 --> 18:17.755
organization of those warehouses.

18:18.245 --> 18:19.465
So some of these spaces I'm talking

18:19.465 --> 18:20.545
about are actually quite large.

18:21.385 --> 18:24.825
Verandas, for example, can be quite small, like we all know

18:24.825 --> 18:27.345
that, but they could be in this grand mansions.

18:27.345 --> 18:29.225
They're very capacious.

18:29.885 --> 18:31.105
So I wanted to understand

18:31.135 --> 18:33.785
what difference does scale and sizeism make?

18:33.785 --> 18:35.825
What is the relation between scale and size,

18:36.445 --> 18:39.385
and how does the change social processes do?

18:40.495 --> 18:45.095
So, if I'm not going to sort of

18:45.865 --> 18:50.785
reassert or refi the older dominant,

18:51.445 --> 18:54.145
you know, mode of, you know, narrating,

18:54.945 --> 18:57.705
imperial history, what an option.

18:58.545 --> 19:00.245
So scholars such as Sam Ramin

19:00.265 --> 19:04.205
and Walter Manolo have used the idea

19:04.345 --> 19:06.365
of delinking that you need to sort

19:06.365 --> 19:08.605
of unplug from the capitalist circuit.

19:08.895 --> 19:11.285
Don't speak that language, speak a different language.

19:11.545 --> 19:14.565
In other words, don't do the task of simpler reputation.

19:14.835 --> 19:18.825
Then you're always sort of refine the dominant

19:19.465 --> 19:21.145
position method and so and so forth.

19:21.645 --> 19:24.815
So, the way I thought, think about it very much,

19:24.815 --> 19:26.775
or think of it as an electric circuit, you know,

19:26.775 --> 19:28.255
so there is a main circuit.

19:28.435 --> 19:30.615
If I don't want to do that, I unplug it.

19:31.465 --> 19:34.985
I look for where else can I plug it in to tell a new story?

19:35.855 --> 19:37.905
What will generate a different circuit?

19:38.525 --> 19:41.105
In other words, what I have to choose points, literally.

19:41.645 --> 19:44.105
And then I have to say, how will I wire this?

19:45.255 --> 19:50.155
How will I lead my, you know, narrative along these points?

19:50.785 --> 19:53.155
What would that, what story would that tell?

19:53.965 --> 19:58.645
So I have to think about not only what sites am I choosing,

19:59.635 --> 20:01.575
but do I move from the small to the large?

20:02.125 --> 20:05.055
What if there is no large, maybe that's a constellation

20:05.055 --> 20:07.685
of small spaces and dimensionally, small spaces,

20:07.995 --> 20:09.005
there's a logic to that.

20:09.065 --> 20:11.525
In other words, they may not always sort of,

20:11.785 --> 20:14.005
if you assemble them, become something large,

20:14.895 --> 20:17.825
there's no guarantee that, and that's okay.

20:18.005 --> 20:19.145
That's not a problem for me.

20:19.765 --> 20:23.945
So I use the term strategic delinking

20:24.165 --> 20:29.105
to the sort of sort of, taking off of, Sam Rams

20:29.105 --> 20:33.505
and what Walter mine's ideas, thinking that in some cases

20:34.185 --> 20:37.705
I will very closely follow the dominant line

20:38.165 --> 20:42.025
and see where I can, where it kind of phrase against,

20:42.295 --> 20:44.825
it's like, you know, it cannot hold anymore the control.

20:44.885 --> 20:46.505
You know, it's kind of fraying at the edges.

20:47.025 --> 20:50.005
And other times I will not pay any attention to it.

20:50.555 --> 20:53.885
I'll give you an example. When I was looking at service

20:53.885 --> 20:57.485
spaces, these are, spaces of food production,

20:58.645 --> 21:02.885
I decided to look at, Chen's design of,

21:03.065 --> 21:04.645
the vice choice palace in New Delhi.

21:04.875 --> 21:07.285
Massive building, I mean talking massive.

21:08.705 --> 21:10.965
And he put all the services in the basement,

21:11.095 --> 21:12.445
which was actually very unusual

21:12.625 --> 21:14.125
for colonial offices in India.

21:16.085 --> 21:18.545
By any measure, you cannot get any more elite

21:18.545 --> 21:19.775
example, right?

21:19.795 --> 21:22.695
You know, that that's the most important cent, you know,

21:22.715 --> 21:25.845
center of British imperial authority.

21:27.075 --> 21:29.855
So I wanted to understand how in those

21:32.645 --> 21:36.445
I can, within that space, I can still tell the story

21:36.705 --> 21:38.645
of the people who labor to those spaces.

21:39.295 --> 21:40.865
What are my visual strategies?

21:40.965 --> 21:41.905
I'm trained as an architect,

21:41.905 --> 21:43.105
you know, what do I do with the plans?

21:43.165 --> 21:44.305
How do I read the plans?

21:45.295 --> 21:49.245
Um, so that's sort of, you know, instead

21:49.245 --> 21:51.645
of telling the story of the main floors, I decided,

21:51.745 --> 21:52.925
I'm just gonna talk about the basement.

21:54.205 --> 21:56.225
Nobody has focused on the basement, okay?

21:56.255 --> 21:58.065
They're actually good books on the building,

21:58.685 --> 21:59.945
but basement is also,

22:00.195 --> 22:01.905
there was service space in the basement,

22:02.285 --> 22:04.745
as if it is secondary, as it is sub, you know, sort

22:04.745 --> 22:06.305
of the subsidiary.

22:06.525 --> 22:10.025
For me, that is truly the base of all of it.

22:10.335 --> 22:12.945
Without that, nothing works without that labor.

22:13.095 --> 22:16.145
Nothing works. So I put that, make that primary.

22:16.525 --> 22:21.025
So enough way I am sort of, delinking some,

22:21.365 --> 22:25.225
relations and creating other relations.

22:25.645 --> 22:26.945
So that's my,

22:27.135 --> 22:30.345
what I call my strategic de-linking, if that makes sense.

22:30.565 --> 22:31.785
You know, initially I wanted

22:31.785 --> 22:33.705
to call the book a Geography of Small Spaces.

22:33.845 --> 22:36.305
That's what was the title for the longest time.

22:37.135 --> 22:40.195
And my editor, talked me out of it,

22:40.855 --> 22:42.415
and then my kid said, no, no, no,

22:42.415 --> 22:43.695
you should just call it small spaces.

22:44.435 --> 22:47.175
Uh, so you, you, you hear two important people, okay?

22:47.515 --> 22:51.015
Uh, people who know well partly about selling books,

22:51.315 --> 22:54.495
and partly about, you know, I'm immersed in my project.

22:54.735 --> 22:56.095
I have a very different relationship

22:56.095 --> 22:58.255
with my project than others who are not

22:58.765 --> 23:00.295
what they think is important.

23:01.305 --> 23:05.095
Um, and I want you to think about

23:07.665 --> 23:08.765
spa, you know, small space.

23:08.785 --> 23:10.765
The reason I introduced geography, I'm an,

23:10.805 --> 23:12.685
I call myself an honorary geographer.

23:13.005 --> 23:14.685
I, I worked with geographers.

23:14.925 --> 23:17.805
I publish in a general historical geography and others,

23:18.465 --> 23:19.925
but I'm not a geographer by training.

23:20.385 --> 23:24.345
So when I say geography of small spaces, I wanted

23:24.485 --> 23:28.985
to think about the spatial relations

23:30.035 --> 23:31.285
that I want to foreground.

23:32.255 --> 23:35.035
In other words, to create what I would call a new geos,

23:36.175 --> 23:38.455
a new set of relations, spatial relations.

23:38.525 --> 23:43.215
What I did not want to do is begin with the idea

23:43.275 --> 23:45.560
of the British Empire as an established fact.

23:45.985 --> 23:50.065
That's what Colonial Maps tried to do when it was clearly,

23:50.105 --> 23:52.185
I mean, you could read those maps and say, it doesn't work.

23:52.285 --> 23:54.105
It no matter how big,

23:54.245 --> 23:56.945
and then in its biggest extent the British Empire was,

23:57.045 --> 23:59.085
it was still fragmented.

23:59.115 --> 24:00.445
Scattered and so forth.

24:01.385 --> 24:05.845
So I wanted to say, okay, I'm not going to begin with

24:05.845 --> 24:08.125
that line, that there was this thing called the British

24:08.145 --> 24:10.805
Empire, which is not to say there wasn't British Empire,

24:10.805 --> 24:12.005
British colons, of course it was,

24:12.785 --> 24:15.645
but what is its geographical definition?

24:16.495 --> 24:19.135
I wanted to literally reconstitute that

24:19.525 --> 24:21.695
through the logic of small spaces.

24:22.555 --> 24:23.935
So for me,

24:24.735 --> 24:27.695
pressure Empire is a geography of small spaces.

24:28.315 --> 24:30.175
It is not the big spaces.

24:30.875 --> 24:33.015
We all, you know, we are so much more comfortable talking

24:33.015 --> 24:35.455
about the big spaces, the big cities, London,

24:35.655 --> 24:36.815
Calcutta, you know, New York.

24:36.815 --> 24:38.095
It's just, just named it, it's easier.

24:38.195 --> 24:41.885
That's why we do that. Dominant language is easier

24:42.075 --> 24:43.885
because we have been socialized into it.

24:44.425 --> 24:49.005
We have been told that that is the history when most

24:49.345 --> 24:51.965
of the Empire had very little

24:51.965 --> 24:53.245
connection with that, actually.

24:53.915 --> 24:55.055
So how do we tell those stories?

24:55.635 --> 24:59.765
So that's why I invoke the idea of geography, to

25:00.725 --> 25:04.035
describe the spaces.

25:04.625 --> 25:06.435
What I would actually, the other time I use is the

25:06.435 --> 25:07.555
infrastructure of empire.

25:08.025 --> 25:11.945
What held up them? What is, what was the structure

25:11.945 --> 25:13.105
that held up the empire?

25:13.965 --> 25:17.545
It is labor. It is the people who were quite

25:18.135 --> 25:21.185
removed from the structures of power that held up them.

25:21.995 --> 25:23.575
So that's the story I wanted to tell.

25:24.445 --> 25:26.905
So that's why the sort of the geography rather than,

25:26.925 --> 25:28.505
you know, the architecture, if you will.

25:29.125 --> 25:32.185
But, I will say I'm not a geographer, by training.

25:32.445 --> 25:35.945
And, so for me, it is not so much as a metaphor,

25:36.565 --> 25:40.105
but, an important spatial, concept.

25:40.365 --> 25:44.765
You know, I'm, I'm referring to a constellation of spaces,

25:45.245 --> 25:49.715
a different way of looking at spaces by sort of, you know,

25:50.095 --> 25:54.775
sort on assembling rather than,

25:54.835 --> 25:58.295
you know, like I, I start, I, I begin with the assumption

25:58.365 --> 26:00.695
that it was not coherent.

26:01.705 --> 26:04.565
It was not, you know, a clear sort

26:04.565 --> 26:07.035
of a geographical territory.

26:07.055 --> 26:10.545
We can talk about. Uh, there were no clear boundaries.

26:12.565 --> 26:15.305
I'm gonna start with small elements within it

26:15.405 --> 26:17.785
and see what geography emerges from it.

26:18.325 --> 26:20.945
So that's what geography, you know, one of the things

26:20.945 --> 26:23.465
that I, since I invoked Jim Diet's book,

26:24.315 --> 26:27.615
and it's a short book, you know, like it's meant

26:27.615 --> 26:29.735
for undergraduate students, an introductory text.

26:30.695 --> 26:33.215
I was so taken by it early on, I thought,

26:33.215 --> 26:35.335
if I can ever write a book that's so lucid

26:35.335 --> 26:37.775
and explains complicated concepts like that,

26:38.675 --> 26:40.005
I'll consider my job done.

26:41.095 --> 26:42.755
So I don't think my book is that.

26:43.305 --> 26:45.925
Um, I think I wanted to write short chapters,

26:46.935 --> 26:48.675
and some of the chapters are shorter than

26:48.685 --> 26:50.075
usual academic chapters.

26:50.075 --> 26:53.635
Some of them are not. Uh, so I would,

26:53.875 --> 26:56.235
couldn't quite discipline myself into writing really

26:56.235 --> 26:57.315
short chapters that I wanted.

26:58.135 --> 27:02.915
Um, but I was, I wanted to pay a lot of attention

27:04.245 --> 27:07.045
to the narrative because I think the narrative matters.

27:08.255 --> 27:12.115
So I wanted to, give myself the task of telling the

27:13.055 --> 27:17.085
story of these small spaces, not only through spaces

27:17.705 --> 27:19.605
and sites and objects

27:19.605 --> 27:21.925
and characters that people have not paid attention to,

27:23.175 --> 27:24.835
but also in terms of narrative style.

27:25.065 --> 27:27.955
Because I'm actually looking at, I look at a lot of memoirs,

27:29.105 --> 27:32.185
a lot of, what I call lading lists, which have like,

27:32.185 --> 27:35.305
you know, numbing, you know, sequence in front of,

27:35.565 --> 27:36.985
you know, construct meaning from them.

27:38.415 --> 27:42.465
How do I bring out their significance?

27:42.495 --> 27:46.225
Something to do with telling a story. It is storytelling.

27:47.005 --> 27:49.545
So how, it's not which stories I wanna tell,

27:50.245 --> 27:51.265
how do I tell the story?

27:52.385 --> 27:54.685
So I think the, the tenor

27:54.685 --> 27:56.725
of the book is different from my other books.

27:56.845 --> 27:58.845
I would say the other scholarly books,

27:58.845 --> 27:59.965
that I've written previously

28:00.505 --> 28:03.365
or I might still write, I think we have a responsibility

28:03.425 --> 28:07.635
of scholars if the ideas matter

28:08.065 --> 28:10.925
that much to make it very clear

28:11.225 --> 28:14.165
to reader who's not trained in the discipline.

28:15.265 --> 28:17.845
And yes, I will grant that there are some things

28:17.865 --> 28:21.085
that's not easy if you're not trained in the discipline

28:21.085 --> 28:22.485
to understand, okay?

28:22.505 --> 28:24.245
You know, like let's say you're

28:24.245 --> 28:25.365
reading a book on philosophy.

28:25.365 --> 28:26.885
If you don't have any training, it's hard.

28:27.875 --> 28:29.655
If you're reading something on theoretical physics,

28:29.725 --> 28:31.935
what would you do if you really don't have a

28:31.935 --> 28:32.975
solid grounding in it?

28:33.475 --> 28:34.775
So there will be limitations,

28:35.635 --> 28:40.535
but I do hope, readers can read it,

28:42.725 --> 28:47.005
a degree of, I would say even comfort,

28:48.355 --> 28:52.085
because I think they will find many parts

28:52.105 --> 28:55.205
of it very relatable from their own experience,

28:55.595 --> 28:57.765
because small things matter to all of us,

28:57.765 --> 28:59.685
whether we recognize it or not.

29:00.405 --> 29:00.525
I.

00:00 - So, it's a broad question and, it's a good question. the book has been many years in the making, and if I have to really trace it back, it goes back for over, you know, 30 years, I think. I'm trained as an architect first

00:16 - and as an architectural historian. So, when I entered grad school, and this is at Berkeley, I encountered, historical archeology. And this is American colonial material culture studies and historical archeology through the work of Jim Deeds, who was one of my advisors. And I think it really changed my way of looking at spaces, because it was looking at objects and how do you pay close attention to objects in terms

00:40 - of the historical significance. So, I think it goes back to those days. it was very taken by something that, Jim d wrote in his book. And this book was meant for undergraduate audience going to, okay, it's called, the book is called In Small Things Forgotten, and it's about American historical archeology. And he was, he coded, a probate inventory, you know, the inventories that are done when somebody dies

01:08 - and they're, you know, so you know, their property is Eva, you know, like tabulated and so on, so forth. And, so the people who did those inventories, they would write in the, at the end that in small things, forgotten are so many shillings and so many pens, and so on, so forth, because there are two insignificant to pay, you know, two tabulates separately in various, you know, big chairs, you know, bedstead, et cetera. They have value. So I was very taken by that, and he was,

01:40 - and he used to teach that, and I said, you know, sort of assigning a little value that we are, you know, we might have forgotten, but this nevertheless had value. And so that's, that's the, in small things, forgotten. And he, he wrote that, it's in the small things, which in our, in which our life is measured in some way. We, we remember the small things after everything is said and done. So all those things that accumulate over a lifetime, the small things, those are the things that matter.

02:11 - And I think really, struck a chord in my thinking. I think I very much was raised by my mother to think that, small things matter. You know, small gestures matter, and, pay attention to the small things. You know, it's not, the only way you get to the big things is when you attention pay attention to the small things. But my project is, quite different from Jim Diet as well, in the sense that I look at the relation

02:39 - between objects and spaces as somebody who's trained to look at spaces, that is my primary focus. But my question was why haven't these spaces that I think are, you know, important, actually been looked at carefully? So, so, the, what what motivated the book was I came across in the archives, and, you know, imagine this, I'm sitting in the British library looking at tones in terms of things, and, you know, also memoirs and all of that.

03:12 - And I find this term bottle, can I have no idea what that is? Like who knows what a bottle can is? And then I realized, well, everybody at one point seemed to have known what a bottle canna is. There's no history of it. It happens to be a storage space, you know, the idea of keeping bottles. And I later I re recognizes to do with alcohol consumption and, you know, beverage, but mostly alcohol.

03:34 - So you take the idea of bottle and canna, it's like a gym kana. So it's, it's a, you know, the sort of Indian, the Persian Urdu term coming together to produce this kind of hybrid, nomenclature, nomenclature matters. What do you call spaces matter. so I was very taken by it, and the fact that I had no idea what this was about, because by the time I grew up, and I'm talking about, I grew up in India,

03:58 - the term had completely fallen out of, you know, use so about, and then the archives, I found that, even in the 1920s and thirties, it was so being used not after that. So the terms had changed, but you just referred to stor, you know, storage space. And it was clearly, I figured something that I can imagine Indian servants, and it could be very senior Indian servants coming up with the term, you know, what do you call this space

04:21 - where you keep loads and loads of bottles, you know? So it was a new thing in the 18th century. Okay? So I kind of patiently tracked it back. So in a way, the bottle kind is my entree, but clearly I'm not just looking at bottle kind of, but because that allowed me to make the connection between spaces and objects. Well, why are, why what's so peculiar or new about bottles? Well, a lot is new. it has to do with food consumption. It has to do with the materiality of the bottles

04:49 - that they can be resold, that you need a cork. And these are all imported. You know, you, you had to import cork from England, and, you know, and there was a huge business, I mean, some Indian, merchants became extremely rich through this business. So there was a, actually a separate, apart from the alcohol, you know, trade, there was a trade in bottles. So those things kind of got me interested. but once you get into food,

05:16 - which is very interested in food history, you recognize it's just not alcohol. It has to do with other food materials. You know, what is being moved from one part of the world to another? It just ask started asking. But I would say basic questions. Where were they kept? How were they stored? How were they moved? Who moved them? Who took care of them? I think one of the things that interested me is that not simply that, you know, there were, you know,

05:41 - massive amounts of, alcohol being traded, and they were kept in bottles. and, you know, the way alcohol actually would be, imported was often not in bottles. They were in casks, they were in barrels, you know, hug heads, and then, then they would be bottled. So I was interested in, how these were moved, where they were stored. And the interesting thing about these, you know, bottle canna as a space is that, they were,

06:13 - it was clearly a new space in the sense that, that suddenly you have from the 18th century onwards, tremendous, scale of, import of alcohol that it, it really goes up. But what was important about this was not just the alcohol that was being, you know, consumed or the, the type of alcohol or any of those, but the fact that the bottles themselves had an important, sort of, trade relation in other, they formed a trade relation.

06:48 - bottles were sold by themselves. That was a, you know, separate trade linked, but separate, of bottles and corks because cork had to be imported from England. So there is another sort of related trade. And, I got interested in, so how do I find the, sort of the keepers of these, you know, spaces who, who traded them, who, you know, sort of, stowed them who, who actually managed this, this, sort of trade in the, when it, when you taking it

07:27 - to the residences, the hotels, or the spaces of consumption? So that's my, sort of the, you know, way of thinking about the bottle canna, which again, I had no idea what it was about. So, you know, as architectural historians, we are very good at certain things. we are very good at analyzing plans, for example, you look at architectural plans, and we can make a very sophisticated you conclusions from those.

07:57 - But there are also problems with that. You know, I'm, and I'm thinking about, you know, great examples like Robin Evans' work, you know, John Michael LA's work reluctance work, and I've tried to do the same myself. plans really embody social relations. We can look at a plan and understand how spaces are intended to be used, okay, what is primary, what is secondary? But when we do that, we rarely,

08:20 - as architectural historians think about how a space is actually experience differently by different people. When we analyze plans, we always presume in sort of an comedian point of view as if there is a in uniform complete subject that can vicariously move through this abstract rep representation and understand what's happening in these plans, way to move, what's the importance on so forth. And that's how we teach. The fact is,

08:51 - no space is experienced exactly the same way by, different groups of people. It depends on, what constituency is looking at it. Masters don't look at spaces the same way as servants or enslaved would. It's not complicated. It's actually very basic, but we have never quite developed what I would say, method to investigate these. So that's one aspect, like, you know, how do I look at actually small spaces from the point

09:19 - of view of those who lived in those spaces, managed those spaces, labored in those spaces? If I cannot get to their point of view, you know, I do not want to obviously sort of, resuscitate or, you know, reinforce the dominant point of view that is very easy to read off from a plan. For example, I'm just talking about a plan as an architectural representation. But the other thing about what I was doing in terms of, and this is the inspiration from partly Jim Diet's work

09:49 - or certainly from material culture studies, is that looking at relation between objects and spaces, there are actually very few examples who do that. And when you do that, you, come across all kinds of, mythological problems about scale, about process, about size. It, it, it's about, you know, what are the questions are you going to ask between the relation between, you know,

10:15 - objects and spaces. Lemme give you a different example. For example, thinking of the bookshelves. I wanted to know, how the bookshelves were socialized into these spaces. Spaces, okay. In other words, what happens to spaces when bookshelves enter into households as furniture as, we, we don't, we are so used to bookshelf, we don't think of how they can change space. So, that was something that was kind

10:44 - of important for me to understand. But for that, I had to think about, you know, what do I fall back upon in terms of method to think of the bookshelf as space, not as an objective space as space. What is the, you know, sort of the logical spatial order of a bookshelf? What does, what do, let's say the 26 bookshelf, you know, bookcases that I've mentioned, what do they do to a, to a space? How do they change them? You know?

11:12 - So those are the, I ask, I would say strange questions about objects and spaces. That's how I get interested in the small spaces of what are, and you know, many of these are not small spaces, and that's something that also interests me, that dimensionally, they're not always small. You know, it you, if you, you may not, you or I may not be able to live in a bookshelf, right? Okay. But we are surrounded by it. That means that has a spatial component.

11:41 - If we are surrounded, in my case, for example, it's a background, but it's a very important spatial component of the space I'm in inhabiting and the space that I'm projecting through this interview, right? It's not just a backdrop, you know, this is my, I keep my Bengali books here. I, because, you know, my husband and I share a lot of books, you know, the books all over the house,

12:03 - but these are the ones where I keep my Bengali books, because I'm the only one who reads Bengali in the household. Okay? So, so there is a particular resonance to this collection, and it, it actually, you know, goes around the room. And the thing is that, historically what happened was that when you move from trunks to bookshelves, the collection of books, and, you know, in other words, something of intellectual merit take on a different significance.

12:35 - And here's an example. The reason I got, you know, interested in with the Cha's bookshelf, it's a good about a hundred years, 80 years later than, one incident that struck me historically as very important. This is the fourth myo war. It's happening very far from Calcutta, where amlo, I was looking at this bookshelf, and it's happening in Myo and Tippo Shan, was just killed. And his entire palace, is being ransacked by the British, you know, colonial army,

13:08 - the East Indian companies are, and they enter his library, this the state library. And there's actually a great description of that space. What, what the library contained. And it was an explicit comparison made with the bole that, you know, the books were sort of dumped in, some larger trunks. They were in, you know, they were not in bookshelves. You know, there was not a raid in this manner where you can look at the spine,

13:36 - but as we know, you know, the books bookshelves and libraries have changed a lot since the ancient times, right? Because from initially there were manuscripts, and then you have the book, the more what we would recognize it. But books were changed because, you know, they had to be changed at that time for, because they were like, these toes, they didn't want to, you know, they're valuable enough.

13:55 - They didn't want them to get lost, et cetera, stolen. But the idea that there is something of enlightenment value in the bookshelf, that it creates the space, it is the space of enlightenment. So you compare the collection of great European libraries and their beautifully array books just as elite to say that Sultan was, you know, you know, his despotic by looking at his library, here is his state papers, here is his collection of eliminated manuscripts, which according to these viewers looked dumped.

14:37 - Well, they were not dumped. They were actually had a different organizational, sort of repertoire. It, it had a different order in which they were kept. So I got very interested in these kinds of representations about how bookshelves are not just util utilitarian objects, very key books, but people's sense of identity deeply, you know, related to that. We can think of Walter Benjamin writing about his bookshelf, the books, his library, right?

15:09 - You know, it, it's, it's beautiful. This is something of, you know, assumed in his, writing. He takes the bookshelf. So for granted that he actually doesn't talk about the bookshelf. He's talking about taking out the books from the packages and sort of living with them again. And it's the pleasure of that. And we can all get behind that because we love books.

15:33 - But the bookshelf for him sort of disappears because they are just bookshelves. They were not so in many other places in the world. In other words, they were deeply, you know, imagined you can, so in a, this of the book, how the books are kept, and I'm not thinking of how librarians do it, right? There's a particular logic when we go to a library when you see it. but I'm talking about, how

16:14 - we attach a certain kind of spatial identity, organizational logic to the books in a bookshelf and how bookshelves actually generate a spatial ED. So I'll look at examples where, you know, that, this reformer educator that I'm talking about with the Shaer, his authority, how he kind of surrounded himself with books and bookshelves was almost quite undone by this famous encounter with a,

16:47 - well known 19th century saint. so there are stories to be told about books, books and bookshelves, and before we get to the library, that is, that's my point. So, you know, and this is goes back to my method, like, you know, how do I do this, right? Like, you know, I wanted to tell a different story of empire. I've been working on empire for a long time. So, what, you know, how do I approach it?

17:16 - One of the things that interested me is that many of the spaces I'm talking about are indeed small, dimensionally small, you know, it, a bottle counter could be something like six by eight or eight by 10, you know, modest kitchens of that size, right? I talk about, and they were called cook rooms in the colonial, era, because they were not within the household, they were outside the house. So they can be quite modest in, in terms of dimension,

17:46 - but some of them, I'm talking about warehouses, they're not modest at all. They're huge. Very few people actually have written about the spatial logic of warehouses, and it's quite stunning to think about. And you think of what is capitalism and co colonialism without warehouses, okay? Think of the ones in Manchester. Think of the ones in Calcutta. I mean, like, where, where will you go?

18:09 - Like, there's no way you could talk about a major city, even though talking about warehouses, we have very little knowledge about the spatial organization of those warehouses. So some of these spaces I'm talking about are actually quite large. Verandas, for example, can be quite small, like we all know that, but they could be in this grand mansions. They're very capacious. So I wanted to understand

18:31 - what difference does scale and sizeism make? What is the relation between scale and size, and how does the change social processes do? So, if I'm not going to sort of reassert or refi the older dominant, you know, mode of, you know, narrating, imperial history, what an option. So scholars such as Sam Ramin and Walter Manolo have used the idea of delinking that you need to sort

19:06 - of unplug from the capitalist circuit. Don't speak that language, speak a different language. In other words, don't do the task of simpler reputation. Then you're always sort of refine the dominant position method and so and so forth. So, the way I thought, think about it very much, or think of it as an electric circuit, you know, so there is a main circuit. If I don't want to do that, I unplug it. I look for where else can I plug it in to tell a new story?

19:35 - What will generate a different circuit? In other words, what I have to choose points, literally. And then I have to say, how will I wire this? How will I lead my, you know, narrative along these points? What would that, what story would that tell? So I have to think about not only what sites am I choosing, but do I move from the small to the large? What if there is no large, maybe that's a constellation of small spaces and dimensionally, small spaces, there's a logic to that.

20:09 - In other words, they may not always sort of, if you assemble them, become something large, there's no guarantee that, and that's okay. That's not a problem for me. So I use the term strategic delinking to the sort of sort of, taking off of, Sam Rams and what Walter mine's ideas, thinking that in some cases I will very closely follow the dominant line and see where I can, where it kind of phrase against, it's like, you know, it cannot hold anymore the control.

20:44 - You know, it's kind of fraying at the edges. And other times I will not pay any attention to it. I'll give you an example. When I was looking at service spaces, these are, spaces of food production, I decided to look at, Chen's design of, the vice choice palace in New Delhi. Massive building, I mean talking massive. And he put all the services in the basement, which was actually very unusual for colonial offices in India.

21:16 - By any measure, you cannot get any more elite example, right? You know, that that's the most important cent, you know, center of British imperial authority. So I wanted to understand how in those I can, within that space, I can still tell the story of the people who labor to those spaces. What are my visual strategies? I'm trained as an architect, you know, what do I do with the plans?

21:43 - How do I read the plans? so that's sort of, you know, instead of telling the story of the main floors, I decided, I'm just gonna talk about the basement. Nobody has focused on the basement, okay? They're actually good books on the building, but basement is also, there was service space in the basement, as if it is secondary, as it is sub, you know, sort of the subsidiary.

22:06 - For me, that is truly the base of all of it. Without that, nothing works without that labor. Nothing works. So I put that, make that primary. So enough way I am sort of, delinking some, relations and creating other relations. So that's my, what I call my strategic de-linking, if that makes sense. You know, initially I wanted to call the book a Geography of Small Spaces. That's what was the title for the longest time.

22:37 - And my editor, talked me out of it, and then my kid said, no, no, no, you should just call it small spaces. so you, you, you hear two important people, okay? people who know well partly about selling books, and partly about, you know, I'm immersed in my project. I have a very different relationship with my project than others who are not what they think is important. and I want you to think about

23:07 - spa, you know, small space. The reason I introduced geography, I'm an, I call myself an honorary geographer. I, I worked with geographers. I publish in a general historical geography and others, but I'm not a geographer by training. So when I say geography of small spaces, I wanted to think about the spatial relations that I want to foreground. In other words, to create what I would call a new geos,

23:36 - a new set of relations, spatial relations. What I did not want to do is begin with the idea of the British Empire as an established fact. That's what Colonial Maps tried to do when it was clearly, I mean, you could read those maps and say, it doesn't work. It no matter how big, and then in its biggest extent the British Empire was, it was still fragmented. Scattered and so forth. So I wanted to say, okay, I'm not going to begin with

24:05 - that line, that there was this thing called the British Empire, which is not to say there wasn't British Empire, British colons, of course it was, but what is its geographical definition? I wanted to literally reconstitute that through the logic of small spaces. So for me, pressure Empire is a geography of small spaces. It is not the big spaces. We all, you know, we are so much more comfortable talking

24:33 - about the big spaces, the big cities, London, Calcutta, you know, New York. It's just, just named it, it's easier. That's why we do that. Dominant language is easier because we have been socialized into it. We have been told that that is the history when most of the Empire had very little connection with that, actually. So how do we tell those stories? So that's why I invoke the idea of geography, to

25:00 - describe the spaces. What I would actually, the other time I use is the infrastructure of empire. What held up them? What is, what was the structure that held up the empire? It is labor. It is the people who were quite removed from the structures of power that held up them. So that's the story I wanted to tell. So that's why the sort of the geography rather than, you know, the architecture, if you will.

25:29 - But, I will say I'm not a geographer, by training. And, so for me, it is not so much as a metaphor, but, an important spatial, concept. You know, I'm, I'm referring to a constellation of spaces, a different way of looking at spaces by sort of, you know, sort on assembling rather than, you know, like I, I start, I, I begin with the assumption that it was not coherent. It was not, you know, a clear sort of a geographical territory.

26:07 - We can talk about. there were no clear boundaries. I'm gonna start with small elements within it and see what geography emerges from it. So that's what geography, you know, one of the things that I, since I invoked Jim Diet's book, and it's a short book, you know, like it's meant for undergraduate students, an introductory text. I was so taken by it early on, I thought, if I can ever write a book that's so lucid and explains complicated concepts like that,

26:38 - I'll consider my job done. So I don't think my book is that. I think I wanted to write short chapters, and some of the chapters are shorter than usual academic chapters. Some of them are not. so I would, couldn't quite discipline myself into writing really short chapters that I wanted. but I was, I wanted to pay a lot of attention to the narrative because I think the narrative matters.

27:08 - So I wanted to, give myself the task of telling the story of these small spaces, not only through spaces and sites and objects and characters that people have not paid attention to, but also in terms of narrative style. Because I'm actually looking at, I look at a lot of memoirs, a lot of, what I call lading lists, which have like, you know, numbing, you know, sequence in front of, you know, construct meaning from them. How do I bring out their significance?

27:42 - Something to do with telling a story. It is storytelling. So how, it's not which stories I wanna tell, how do I tell the story? So I think the, the tenor of the book is different from my other books. I would say the other scholarly books, that I've written previously or I might still write, I think we have a responsibility of scholars if the ideas matter that much to make it very clear

28:11 - to reader who's not trained in the discipline. And yes, I will grant that there are some things that's not easy if you're not trained in the discipline to understand, okay? You know, like let's say you're reading a book on philosophy. If you don't have any training, it's hard. If you're reading something on theoretical physics, what would you do if you really don't have a solid grounding in it?

28:33 - So there will be limitations, but I do hope, readers can read it, a degree of, I would say even comfort, because I think they will find many parts of it very relatable from their own experience, because small things matter to all of us, whether we recognize it or not. I.

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