Cities in the 21st Century

By narrating different meanings for a memorial to Chinggis Khaan, differing commu- nities in the Ordos region of Inner Mongolia continue to construct their own identities as integral to the past and present of the landscape they and the monument occupy. To inform discussion of the present monument and the memorial processes that surround it, this article reviews textual references such as recorded Mongolian stories, nineteenth- century travelers’ journals, and a contemporary Chinese conservation plan for the site. It also documents conversations with ethnic Mongols and Han from Inner Mongolia and Mongols from Mongolia, and it employs visual analysis of changes in local architecture and landscape over the past two decades. Distilling the myths and politics of the Ordos monument provides an intriguing picture not only of local interethnic relations but also of the entwinement of people, the architecture they construct and interpret, and the land- scape they inhabit and claim.

The ger districts, so named for the traditional felt tents that are still prevalent in the domestic landscape of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, retain a connection to their nomadic heritage.  But those who dwell here are now removed from the pastoral production systems of the countryside as they struggle to establish a place for themselves at the edge of the city.  This dissertation first locates the place of the ger districts between the countryside and the city, then delves into how land within the ger districts is subdivided for settlement.  With the nature of access to land established, the investigation turns to ethnographic methods of participant-observation and semi-structured interviews combined with architecturally-based research into the visual and material culture of the built environment.  The aim is to better understand residents’ quotidian practices of constructing and inhabiting peri-urban neighborhoods of informal housing.  Conclusions find that ger district residents are finding their own way forward through strategies that transform domesticity into economic and social participation.  The transmutation of mobility, from a nomadic past toward an urban future provides a unique model for academic understanding of self-built housing areas as well as the more generalizable practices and policies concerning settlements in an increasingly urbanized world.

Ulaanbaatar is expanding rapidly at its edges through the construction of informal settlements by influxes of former nomads. In an unfolding narrative paralleling the population shifts, laws intended to govern urban settlement have themselves been unsettled. As migrants seek urban advantages — education, cultural cosmopolitinization, and economies of employment and consumption — they must negotiate the legal regime, embracing it when advantageous but selectively skirting its restrictions. Concerned for losing legitimacy, either from breaking laws too recklessly or adhering to laws too strictly, settlers have developed a discourse that tracks with shifts in legal codes. This article studies families navigating the edges of the legal landscape — veering out of and back into legitimacy — and concludes that constructing vernacular housing is crucial to their strategies of urban participation.