ABSTRACT

The city plan of Kuching is not influenced by systematic planning principles, but rather, it is deeply embedded within colonial infrastructural logistics to meet the demands of global trade services and social structures. The postcolonial city is a palimpsest of hierarchical and territorial imprints from former colonial governance. Much of urban growth is concentrated around nodes, prioritized for resource collection and distribution. Therefore, this paper delineates how the current state and city governance recalibrate inherited infrastructures of economic development from the past, resulting in fragmented hybrid spaces of ethnic enclaves and economically marginalized groups in this northwest city of Borneo. We narrate how the Brooke dynasty, British administration and the Malaysian state have each developed and reappropriated logistics infrastructure based on their own agenda, leaving an indelible mark on the urban fabric and society of Kuching today. These findings are based on content analysis of city plans, visual surveys, government media, and secondary sources. We aim to open up new ways of understanding how multi-layered infrastructure and spaces produced by successive waves of different political strategies resulted in uneven development around the postcolonial city, and why some centres are given preference over others.

摘要

古晋的城市规划不受系统规划原则的影响，而是深深嵌入殖民基础设施物流中，以满足全球贸易服务和社会结构的需求。后殖民城市是前殖民统治的等级和领土印记的重写本。城市增长的大部分集中在节点周围，优先考虑资源收集和分配。因此，本文阐述了当前的国家和城市治理如何重新调整过去继承的经济发展基础设施，从而导致婆罗洲这个西北城市出现种族飞地和经济边缘群体的碎片化混合空间。我们讲述布鲁克王朝如何，英国政府和马来西亚政府各自根据自己的议程开发和重新分配物流基础设施，在当今古晋的城市结构和社会上留下了不可磨灭的印记。这些发现基于对城市规划、视觉调查、政府媒体和二手资料的内容分析。我们的目标是开辟新的方式来理解连续不断的不同政治策略浪潮所产生的多层基础设施和空间如何导致后殖民城市周围发展的不平衡，以及为什么某些中心比其他中心受到优先考虑。