Muddy Logics

MUDDY LOGICS Lindsay Bremner INDIA BANGLADESH INDIA BANGLADESH BEACHED THE CASE OF THE D I SAP P EAR E D I S LAN D MYANMAR BAY OF BENGAL N N Muddy logics: Site Locations. The Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta. Spanning the delta islands of southern Bangladesh and West The essay examines their relations to, and consequences for Bengal, the Sundarban region is a constantly mutating zone international law and offers provisional thoughts about what between land and sea, where the freshwater plumes of the they might mean for architecture and urbanism in today’s Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers deposit their silt hyper-articulated, globalised world. and interact with the saline water of the Bay of Bengal. It has evolved over millennia through the natural deposition The Case of the Disappeared Island of upstream sediments and intertidal segregation, stabilized On March 24, 2010, the BBC reported that a tiny island, by the roots of the largest halophytic mangrove forest in the two kilometres south of the mouth of the Hariabhanga River, world.1 Neither liquid nor solid, the organization of this fluid the border between India and Bangladesh, had sunk beneath archipelago is anti-pattern: undifferentiated, oozy, squelchy, the rising seas.2 South Talpatti Island, as it was known in materializing and dematerializing in an ongoing process of Bangladesh, or New Moore Island, as it was known in India, deposition, accumulation, stabilization, erosion, ebb and flow. was a small uninhabited island that emerged in the Bay This very anti-pattern provides a sludgy, protective barrier to of Bengal in the aftermath of the Bhola cyclone in 1970.3 the intensely cultivated and populated lands of Kolkata, India’s In 1974 it was discovered by an American satellite, which third largest metropolis, and Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital. showed it to have an area of twenty seven thousand square Amphibious, disposable and expedient, its muddy logics offer feet (approximately 150 x 150 feet). Over the years, due strategies of both incorporation and resistance to forces of to the buildup of silt deposits and fluctuating currents, it globalization. expanded to an area about four times that size, including a This essay examines two sites in this liminal zone, the first number of ordinarily submerged shoals.4 In March 2010 it marked by disappearance (The Case of the Disappeared vanished from sight. Island), the second by entanglement (Beached). These are The island’s significance is that it lay at the center of a long- sites where ocean-based practices and protocols meet land- standing territorial dispute between India and Bangladesh.5 based ones and they figure both sea and land-based logics. India reportedly hoisted its flag on the island in 1981 and 1. Anuradha Banerjee, Environment Population and Human http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24488385/ns/technol- over navigation rights between Iran and Iraq in the Settlements of Sundarban Delta (New Delhi: Concept ogy_and_science-science/ [accessed March 10, 2011]. This Shat Al-Arab were among the main factors for the Publishing, 1998). was the most severe and deadliest cyclone of all times, Iraq-Iran War of 1980 – 1988. See for instance T.D.P. 2. “Disputed Bay of Bengal island ‘vanishes’ say scien- killing between 300,000 to 500,000 people. Dugdale-Pointon, Iran-Iraq War 1980-1988, Military History tists,” BBC.co.uk, March 24, 2010, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/ 4. “New Moore / South Talpatti,” Wikipedia.org, last Encyclopedia on the Web, September 09 2002, http://www. hi/south_asia/8584665.stm [accessed March 25, 2010]. modified December 20, 2010, http://en.wikipedia.org/ historyofwar.org/articles/wars_iraniraq.html [accessed 3. “The 10 deadliest storms in history,” Science on msnbc. wiki/South_Talpatti_Island [accessed March 25, 2010]. March 30, 2010]. com, July 05, 2008, 5. Similar confl icting territorial claims and disputes Muddy Logics Bremner  bracket —— 200 Rangabali Thana: Patuakhali district, South-western Bangladesh. established a temporary border security base there, visiting In 1494 when Christopher Columbus went on his first regularly with naval gunships. Bangladesh laid similar territo- expedition to the Americas, Pope John Paul VI divided rial claim to the island on the basis of what is known as the the seas between the then two major maritime powers: he thalweg principle.6 This method of establishing a maritime declared that the North Atlantic belonged to Spain and the border takes the line of greatest depth of a channel in a river, South Pacific and Indian oceans to Portugal. This established which corresponds to the line of the strongest current flow, as the principle of Mare Clausum, or closed seas. The principle a territorial boundary. But flow is not fixed; it is dependent on was challenged in 1609 by Dutch jurist, Hugo Grotius, who all kinds of things such as the topography of the banks, sur- proposed the principal of Mare Liberum, or the freedom of rounding vegetation, silting, and velocity. Each of these fac- the seas. By the eighteenth century, it was widely accepted tors, in a region like the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta, that beyond a three nautical mile limit (the distance a canon is constantly in flux. While Bangladesh acknowledged that could shoot), Mare Liberum prevailed. There were a number the main current of Hariabhanga River flowed east of South challenges to this, but it remained in place until after World Talpatti Island, thus making it part of India, it claimed that this War II, when President Truman unilaterally extended the had not always been the case. This favorable flow was the United States’ jurisdiction to the edge of its continental shelf, result of India tampering with land-use upstream and altering the submerged extent of the land mass of a continent. Other the course of the river. As there is nothing in international law nations followed suit.9 In 1967, in response to a chaotic and that states what should happen if a river changes its course potentially conflictive situation, Malta called for “an effective or if natural dynamics produce or extinguish islands, the international regime over the seabed and the ocean floor island could be India’s one year and Bangladesh’s the next. beyond a clearly defined national jurisdiction.”10 In 1973, Bangladesh proposed that it be shared.7 the United Nations convened the Third United Nations What the disappearance of the island brings to light, if only Conference on the Law of the Sea.11 Nine years later, the because of its newly found uselessness in this regard, is a far first constitution for the world’s oceans, the United Nations reaching process of the territorialization of the world’s oceans Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) was adopted, by the United Nation‘s Convention on the Law of the Sea coming into force in 1994. One hundred and fifty eight (UNCLOS) since 1982.8 nations have now ratified it. 6. Diganta, “How International are the International United Nations Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the 10. “Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Laws?” WordPress.com, January 02, 2009, http://horizon- Sea, http://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agree- Sea,” United Nations Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of speaks.wordpress.com/2009/01/02/how-international- ments/texts/unclos/unclos_e.pdf [accessed March 09, the Sea, http://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agree- are-the-international-laws/ [accessed March 30, 2010]. 2010]. ments/convention_historical_perspective.htm#Third 7. Khondkar A. Saleque, “Energy Bangla Exclusive: 9. “The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea Conference [accessed March 09, 2010]. Maritime Boundary Disputes: Bay of Bengal,” energyban- (A Historical Perspective),” United Nations Division for gla.com, March 07, 2009, http://www.energybangla.com/ Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, http://www.un.org/ index.php?mod=article&cat=SomethingtoSay&arti Depts/los/convention_agreements/convention _histori- cle=1909 [accessed March 30, 2010]. cal_perspective.htm#Historical Perspective [accessed 8. “United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea,” March 09, 2010]. AT EXTREMES  Expanding Processes 201 Bangladesh oil concession blocks. This legislation demarcates the ocean into a number of territorial zones, this in international law, and used the principal of the furthest seaward beginning from a base line, which is the line of average low tide along a extent of the low water line, hence its claim to the disappeared island. shore and, for all legal purposes, a state’s legal boundary. From this line, Bangladesh and Myanmar disputed the entitlement of St. Martins Island, a territorial sea, over which the littoral country has complete sovereignty, an island belonging to Bangladesh lying off the coast of Myanmar, to a extends for twelve nautical miles. Then, for two hundred nautical miles 12 km territorial sea. With India encroaching from the west and Myanmar from the baseline, or up to the end of the continental shelf (to a maximum from the east, Bangladesh was potentially left with a seriously eroded of three hundred and fifty nautical miles) the ocean is considered an EEZ. In 2009, it made its case to The International Tribunal for the Law of exclusive economic zone (EEZ), where the adjacent country has exclusive the Sea (ITCLOS), one of the international juridical bodies for resolv- rights over all living and non-living resources. Beyond this lies the high ing such disputes. India consented to another process, arbitration under seas, over which the United Nations and its agencies have jurisdiction.12 Annex VII of UNCLOS. In March 2012, the dispute between Bangladesh This geometry of demarcation and its interpretation have been deployed and Myanmar was resolved in a groundbreaking judgment by ITCLOS, by many nations to extend their territories and grab resources, particularly its first maritime delimitation case.15 The arbitration between India and into oceans with rich petro-carbon or natural gas deposits. It has also Bangladesh continues. produced unexpected new geographies; Australia, for instance, now lays Disputes aside, what is important here is not so much who has a right claims to large chunks of Antarctica and France and South Africa are new to what or who’s territory overlaps with whose, but rather how international neighbours in the southern Indian Ocean. law has produced a new way of delimiting the ocean. The International The Bay of Bengal has long been known as one of oil and natural Law of the Sea has transformed coastal waters into ‘land-like, developable gas’s final untapped frontiers.13 UNCLOS provided, for the first time, components of state territory’16 and the Bay of Bengal into a ‘potential an instrument for parceling it out and transforming it from waves, winds giant gas-producing province’.17 Whereas former cartographic practices currents and depths into exploitable territory. Because of the instability sought to draw lines between land and sea as a way of defining territory, of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna delta however, defining a base line today’s cartographic and juridical instruments recuperate sea as land. from which to measure which country could lay claim to what eluded New maps of state territory flatten the distinctions between land and sea lawmakers. Where did land end and ocean begin in a fluctuating and and the institutions that regulate them, portraying them as continuous constantly changing terrain? Bangladesh came up with a proposal that topographies of abstract parcels of exploitable real estate to be tendered its base line should be drawn through eight imaginary points where the off to the highest bidder. The ocean has been striated and politicized in water is sixty feet deep.14 India claimed that there was no precedence for new ways and new resource driven territorial conflicts unleashed.18 11. “United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea,” texts/unclos/unclos_e.pdf [accessed March 09, 2010] of the Maritime Boundary between Bangladesh and Wikipedia.org, last modified March 01, 2010, http:// 13. Ganpat Singh Roonwal, The Indian Ocean: Exploitable Myanmar in the Bay of Bengal,” March 14, 2012, http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Convention_ Mineral and Petroleum Resources (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, www.itlos.org/fi leadmin/itlos/documents/cases/ on_the_Law_of_the_Sea [accessed March 09, 2010]. The 1986). case_no_16/1-C16_Judgment_14_02_2012.pdf [accessed fi rst conference (UNCLOS I) was held in 1956 and resulted 14. “Why should equidistance be imposed on July 28, 2012]. in the conclusion of four treatises, the second (UNCLOS Bangladesh?” thedailystar.net, December 15, 2008, II) in 1960. http://www.thedailystar.net/suppliments/2008/delimi- 12. “United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea,” tation/index.htm [accessed March 30, 2010]. United Nations Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, 15. International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, http://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/ “Judgment in the Dispute Concerning Delimitation Muddy Logics Bremner  bracket —— 202 CONSTRUCTED IN ODENSE DENMARK 1980 I M PO RTE D BY U S M I LITARY S EALI FT C O M MAN D UNITED EASTERN TRADING O W N E D BY W I LM I N GTO N TR U ST C O R PO RATI O N C O M PANY, LO N D O N D E LAWAR E 1982 SALE AUTHORIZED BY US MARITIME 1 AD M I N I STRATI O N AG E N CY 2009 STAR MAR ITI M E C O R PO RATI O N D E LA W A R E GADANI BEACH PAK I STAN M O HAM M E D TAH I R LAK HAN I HAJI LOKMAN HOSSAIN DUBAI TRADING AGENCY BAN G LAD E S H S H I P B R EAK E R ST KITTS AND NEVIS OCEAN OPER D IAN A TI IN O N S S U 4 STATI O N E D D I E G O GAR C IA O PE RATE D BY MAE R S K 1985 - 2009 5 2 SANTOS, BRAZIL 3 Ss voyages: Global movements of the SS Anders and SS Bony from building to breaking. Beached of United States Military operations in the Indian Ocean, In 1998, the Clinton Administration called for a moratorium including Iraq. on sending United States government ships to the South From July 2009, the ships went through a succession of Asian shipbreaking yards after a report by the Baltimore rapid ownership changes, and nationalities. Within a month, Sun on conditions in Alang, India.19 In August 2009, under the boats had left the United States as empty cargo vessels Obama’s watch, two ships, the SS Anders and the SS Bonny, destined for Santos, Brazil. If suspicions are confirmed, they left the United States, officially destined for Santos in Brazil. have already surfaced in a South Asian scrapyard.23 In January 2010, one of them surfaced in Pakistan, raising One of the slippery questions for the global shipping indus- suspicions that they had been sold as scrap, in violation not try is how one defines and what one does with waste. Under only of International Conventions, but also of United States the Basel Convention of 1992, it is illegal for developed coun- law.20, 21 tries to export hazardous waste to developing countries. End- The two ships were built in 1980 as commercial cargo of-life ships are considered hazardous waste because of the ships in Odense, Denmark.22 Two years later they were asbestos, oily wastes, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB’s) and imported by the United States, owned by the Wilmington toxic paints they contain. Selling ships to be broken without Trust Corporation, of Delaware, and converted for use by the decontaminating them is a form of toxic dumping. What this Military Sealift Command (MSC), which operates non-com- has meant is that shipbreaking today is conducted via proto- batant, civilian crewed ships in support of the United States cols of deception, back room deals, front companies, decoys Military. They were stationed at Diego Garcia for twenty-four and middlemen in networks that span the globe to avoid the years, operated by the shipping company Maersk, in support cost of compliance with the principle of polluter pays. 16. Paul Steinberg, The Social Construction of the Ocean, works/1998-Investigative-Reporting [accessed February 27) forbids sale of United States government ships to p. 150 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001) 23, 2010]. foreign companies and the Toxic Substances Control 17. GLG Expert Contributor, “Bay of Bengal: a potential 20. Jacob Baynham, “Muddy Waters. Are US shipping Act (TSCA) forbids the export or the distribution in giant gas producing province,” glgroup.com, September companies still selling their clunkers to the toxic scrap commerce of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which 01, 2009, http://www.glgroup.com/News/Bay-of-Bengal- yards of South Asia?” slate.com, September 18, 2009, are highly toxic compounds of chlorine and benzene and a-potential-giant-gas-producing-province-42897.html http://www.slate.com/id/2228712/pagenum/all/ [accessed were once widely used in ship construction. [accessed April 12, 2010] February 22, 2010] and Rajesh Joshi, “US Environmental 22. “Obama’s EPA allows toxic Navy ships to be dumped 18. Nabil Ahmed, “Entangled Earth,”Third Text, Vol. 27, protection Agency to let Anders sail,” Basel Action in Bangladesh,” Basel Action Network, ban.org, August 27, no. 1, pp. 44-53, 2013 Network, ban.org, August 28, 2009, http://www.ban.org/ 2009, http://www.ban.org/ban_news/2009/090827_toxic_ 19. Gary Cohn and Will Englund, Baltimore Sun, ban_news/2009/090828_usepa_to_let_anders_sail.html navy_ships_to_be_dumped.html [accessed February 22, “The Shipbreakers,” Pulitzer Prize for Investigative [accessed February 22, 2010]. 2010] Reporting, 1998, http://www.pulitzer.org/ 21. The Jones Act (Merchant Marine Act of 1920, Section AT EXTREMES  Expanding Processes 203 Shipbreaking yard: Bhatiari, Sitakunda Upazila, Chittagong District, Bangladesh. Until the late ‘70s, shipbreaking was done in the dock- Bhatiari, just north of Chittagong on the Bay of Bengal. Today yards of Europe, the United States and Japan. It was a highly twenty ship breaking yards run by sixty eight enterprises mechanized operation. But as environmental standards occupy a five mile stretch of this beach.,27, 28 It is the largest and health and safety requirements increased, the costs of facility for large vessels in the world, scrapping some 52 per- scrapping began to escalate. As a result, approximately 90 cent of all vessels above two hundred thousand deadweight percent of the shipbreaking industry moved, firstly to Korea tons. The large tidal difference of twenty feet provides an and Taiwan,24 and then to India, Bangladesh, China, Pakistan ideal intertidal zone for beaching these large ships.29 and Turkey,25 poor nations with seemingly endless supplies of By the time ships are rammed into a beach in a shipbreak- exploitable labor and lax environmental and safety regulations. ing yard in South East Asia, they are not ships any longer, nor The South East Asian industry began at Gadani Beach even waste. They are raw material, un-natural resources, to be in Pakistan prior to that country’s independence in 1947.26 mined, dismantled, sold, re-rolled and re-distributed, mostly It was the largest shipbreaking site in the world until 1983, for the construction industry. In Bangladesh, this provides when it was surpassed by the yards at Alang in Gujarat, India, 50 percent of the steel used in its construction industry, currently still the largest shipbreaking site in the world. In as well as the fittings, utensils, sanitary ware, linen etc. that Bangladesh, the practice began by accident in 1965, when furnish Bangladeshi homes and businesses.30 And on the a twenty thousand ton vessel was beached by a tidal wave at beach just north of Chittagong, a new, provisional post-urban 23. A recent internet search for the ships drew a blank. shipbreaking yards opened in Belgium, followed by toxics-free-future/ship-breaking [accessed April 09, 24. William Langewiesche, The Outlaw Sea (New York: Spain, Greece, the former Yugoslavia, Mexico, Colombia, 2012]. The world’s major ship breaking yards today are North Point, 2004); Alfred Nijkirk, “Shipbreaking Japan and Taiwan. By the nineteen sixties, Taiwan was at Gadani Beach in Pakistan, Alang in India, Aligia USA,” Recycling International, March 2006, http://www. the leading shipbreaking country, with yards clustered in Turkey, Bhatiary (just north of Chittagong) in environmental- expert.com/Files/6496/articles/6415/ around Kaohsiung. These closed in 1986, following a Bangladesh and Panyu City, Guangdong, and Xiagang in Shipbreaking.pdf; “American Ship Breaking. It All Comes fatal explosion and the South Asian nations took over the Yangtze delta in China. Apart at the Bottom of America,” The Lay of the Land, as the worlds primary ship breakers The United States 26. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadani_ship-breaking_ Center for Land Use Interpretation, Spring 2010, http:// still operates two ship breaking yards – at Chesapeake yard#History [accessed April 09, 2010]. www.clui.org/lotl/pdf/33_spring2010_color-200dpi. Virginia, and Brownsville Texas, where ships from the 27. Ataur Rahman and A. Z. M. Tabarak Ullah, “Ship pdf; and “Annex 3 Dismantling Sites in Europe and the three federal Ghost Fleets (surplus ships built in the Breaking, A Background Paper,” International Labor OECD,” sgmer.gouv.fr, 1950’s and held in reserve to be activated in times of war) Organization’s Sectoral Activities Programme, Dhaka 1999, http://www.sgmer.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/Annex_3_ are taken apart. In Europe, yards still operate in the ports http://ilo-mirror.library.cornell.edu/public/english/pro- Dismantling_site_in_Europe_and_OECD.pdf [accessed of Gand in Belgium, Scheepssloperij in the Netherlands, tection/safework/sectors/shipbrk/shpbreak.htm March 10, 2011]. The United Kingdom, United States Grenaa and Esburg in Denmark and Klaipeda in [accessed April 08, 2010]. and the Netherlands were the major shipbreaking Lithuania. 28. This number has increased dramatically to 108, nations until after World War II. In the nineteen fi fties, 25. http://www.greenpeace.org/india/campaigns/ since the 2008 economic recession. In 2009, about 2.4 Muddy Logics Bremner  bracket —— 204 assemblage has taken shape. This has transformed the Chittagong Port Authority; leases for adjacent inland areas coastline into a frictional zone where the murkiness of a sea- are dealt with by the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport based economy meets an even more squelchy land-based Authority (BIWTA); environmental matters associated with one characterized by overlapping administrative jurisdictions, shipbreaking are under the jurisdiction of the Department of military and business collusions, nimble agents, middlemen, the Environment; import of vessels to Bangladesh for break- decoys and graft. ing is subjected to yet another governmental authorization Bhatiari is described as the “hidden, green paradise of procedure, this time from the Department of Commerce — all Chittagong,” 31 owing this reputation to its recreational lake multiple, opaque jurisdictions that increase inscrutability and in the forested hills above the Bay of Bengal. It lies in the multiply opportunities for gain.37 Sitakunda Upazila, one of the oldest sites of human habita- The pattern of human settlement that has taken shape tion in Bangladesh, known for its Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist confounds accepted typologies or morphologies. It is both a shrines.32 Local inhabitants have traditionally worked in productive landscape and a site of cultural transfer, weaving agriculture and fishing and more recently in commerce and bits and pieces of ships into the cities, towns and villages of the service economy.33 It also boasts the Bangladesh Military Bangladesh and beyond. It has reversed the direction of flow Academy, the Faujdarhat Cadet College, a military sponsored of the nineteenth century imperial formations (raw material golf and country club, the Chittagong University Campus and from the colonies, production in the metropolitan center). Its a middle- income residential township laid by the Chittagong model is not the nineteenth century factory town of the United Housing Authority in the late 1980’s.34 Kingdom nor the plantations of the United States, but some- Between the hills and the sea, into this already charged thing very particular to the Indian Ocean itself, drawing on the landscape, ship breaking has injected a new anti-ecology. deep archive of muddy logics through which people have put Tightly guarded, highly concealed tracks lead from the high- the ocean and its deposits to work for centuries. way to the shipbreaking yards through fenced workers com- Clues to this condition and the challenges it presents pounds, residual farmlands and stagnant water ponds. Goods can be found in the architectures of software design, in stripped from ships (kitchen equipment, bathroom fittings, particular those known as Big Balls of Mud.38 These are linen, machine parts) pile high for sale along roads; discarded software systems that survive precisely because of their lack lifeboats float in waterways; oil and other forms of hazardous of hierarchy or overall structure — “haphazardly structured, waste seep into ground waters and pollute fishing grounds. sprawling, sloppy, duct-tape and bailing wire, spaghetti code Here the more than one hundred thousand individuals who jungles.”39 They often emerge in the software design world earn their livelihoods from the scrapping of vessels,35 mostly from throw away codes, devised expediently in response to recruited from the villages of northern Bangladesh,36 crowd market demands or time constraints and never intended for into makeshift shelters. In more than four hundred nearby permanent use, but which are then modified as conditions steel mills, steel plate is smelted down, reformed, rerolled and change. They evolve through patch after patch at the hands of resold. The highway is clogged with trucks, bicycles, taxis, multiple maintainers, each of whom tinker about, caring little tuk-tuks, motorbikes, cars and all kinds of makeshift vehicles about the consequences of what he or she is doing or how it transporting goods away. might impact on the next. Over time, such processes become All of this takes place on land which is state owned. Big Balls of Mud — working systems without regulation, which Shipbreakers lease their land from the government, subject have eroded and accreted unregulated growth and repeated, to an application procedure handled by the Bangladesh expedient repair. Mercantile Marine Department, administered by the million tons of iron were obtained from ships scrapped www.banglapedia.org/httpdocs/HT/S_0420.HTM Action, “End of Life Ships – The Human Cost of Breaking in Bangladesh, compared with 650,000 tons from 2007 to [accessed April 10, 2010]. Ships,” fidh.org, 2005, http://www.fidh.org/END-OF-LIFE- 2008 and 1.22 million tons in 2006. Opportunities are set 33. “Sitakunda Upzala,” Banglapedia.org, 2006, http:// SHIPS-THE-HUMAN-COST-OF-BREAKING [accessed to increase further as the European Union completes a www.banglapedia.org/httpdocs/HT/S_0420.htm April 10, 2010]. Workers come from Nandail (north of phase-out of single-hull tankers operating in its waters. [accessed April 10, 2010]. It has two hundred and eighty Kishorganj), Saria Kandi (near Bogra) Chandan Baisha, See Syed Tashfi n Chowdhury, “Bangladesh shipbreakers mosques, eight mazars, forty nine Hindu temples, four Dac Bangla and Kolni Bari (south of Saria Kandi). survive headwinds,” Asian Times, March 01, 2011, http:// ashrams, and three Buddhist temples. 37. For details of the relations between the industry www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/MC01Df02.html 34. Group: 01(Warrior), “Report on the Impact of the and government ministries and departments, and the [accessed March 28, 2011]. Small Scale Real Estate Business on the Urbanization structuring of the industry see Ataur Rahman and A. 29. Aage Bjorn Andersen, Erik Bjornbom and Terje Patterns of Third World Cities: A Case Study on Z. M. Tabarak Ullah, “Ship Breaking, A Background Sverud, Technical Report DNV RN 590, Decommissioning of Chittagong Division,” scribd.com, December 20, 2009 Paper,” International Labor Organization’s Sectoral Activities Ships, Environmental Standards, Ship-breaking Practices / http://www.scribd.com/doc/24494329/The-Impact-of- Programme, Dhaka 1999, http://ilo-mirror.library.cornell. On-site Assessment, Bangladesh Chittagong Report No. 2000 the-Small-Scale-Real-Estate-Business-On [accessed April edu/public/english/protection/safework/sectors/ 3158, Revision No. 01 (Hovik, Norway: Det Norske Veritas, 10, 2010]. shipbrk/shpbreak.htm 2000). 35. Aage Bjorn Andersen, Erik Bjornbom and Terje [accessed April 08, 2010]. 30. 97 percent of the ships that are taken apart in Sverud, Technical Report DNV RN 590, Decommissioning of 38. Brian Foote and Joseph Yoder, “Big Ball of Mud,” lapu- Bangladesh are recycled. Ships, Environmental Standards, Ship-breaking Practices / tan.org, August 28, 2001, http://www.laputan.org/mud/ 31. Jennifer Ashraf, “Sunset Splendour at Bhatiary,” On-site Assessment, Bangladesh Chittagong Report No. 2000 mud/html [accessed November 15, 2010]. The Daily Star Home 2, 49, June 14, 2005, http://www. 3158, Revision No. 01 (Hovik, Norway: Det Norske Veritas, 39. Ibid.,2. thedailystar.net/lifestyle/2005/06/02/page02.htm 2000). [accessed April 09, 2010]. 36. Greenpeace and International Federation for Human 32. “Sitakunda Upzala,” Banglapedia.org, 2006, http:// Rights in co-operation with Young Power for Social AT EXTREMES  Expanding Processes 205 Scrapped lifeboats: Bhatiari, Sitakunda Upazila, Chittagong District, Bangladesh. N BEACHED SHIPS S H IP B R E A K I N G AGRICULTURE STEEL MILLS CH ROADSIDE WORKERS IT HOUSING FOREST TA STALLS YAR D S GO NG Shipbreaking map: Bhatiari, Sitakunda Upazila, Chittagong District, Bangladesh. Muddy Logics Bremner  bracket —— 206 It is precisely this lack of differentiation, hierarchy, structure or consequence that makes Big Balls of Mud work. They facilitate economies of speed and rapid change, protecting against market fluctuations and managing risk. Their lack or rather minimal reliance on overall infrastructure, co-ordination or capital investment means that they can nimbly adapt to change. They rely on homeostasis and retrospective feedback rather than prediction. They de-emphasize planning and upfront design for feedback and integration. In the face of the agile inscrutability of such muddy logics, what might design do? Foote and Yoder argue that there are ways to improve the functionality and durability of such systems, given that their inbuilt stickiness tends to become a quagmire.40 There are ways to cultivate them as they evolve. This is not through “rigid, totalitarian, top-down design,”41 but through the kind of small, incremental transformations that produced the undifferentiated structure in the first place. In software design, this is known as refactoring or making tiny changes to a computer program’s source code to improve its functionality. The cure for Big Balls of Mud is “flexible, adaptive feedback driven development”42 that adapts internal and external forces to one another over time. There is no reason why these cannot incorporate demands for social and environmental justice as well as supply chains and markets. Key to this is a measure of enhanced scrutability to enable the identification of patterns, the establishment of frame- works, interfaces and protocols, the introduction of new components, and, in some cases, the isolation and complete refurbishment of irreparable parts of the system.43 These are the lessons learned from this excursion to the amphibious sites of South East Asia. Just as South Talpatti / New More Island, appearing and disappearing according to the muddy logics of the Ganges, Brahmaputra Meghna delta threw into doubt the very possibility of transforming coastal waters into exploitable units of state territory, so on the beach at Bhatiari, a proto-urban assemblage has taken shape according to comparable, opaque logics. It makes no claims to being an industrial zone, a linear city, or anything at all really, despite housing 100,000 workers and producing half of Bangladesh’s steel. It is a throwaway urbanism super- imposed on a dense, fragile ecosystem, devised expediently in response to market demands, time constraints and risk. If understood as a Big Ball of Mud, its multiple resources, multiple scales and multiple ecologies might be able to be refactored into a more resilient, equitable interface for today’s contingent, open-ended, promiscuous world. Lindsay Bremner is Director of Architectural Research at the University of Westminster. She is currently pursuing work on Geo-architecture, investigating relationships between architecture and geology, and Folded Ocean, examining sites in the Indian Ocean world. 40. Ibid. www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/MC01Df02.html formalizes its contribution to the Bangladeshi economy, 41. Ibid, 9. [accessed March 28, 2011]. On February 17, 2011, shipbreak- increases scrutability and presents the possibly of new 42. Ibid, 5. ing was recognized as an industry by the Bangladesh opportunities for its restructuring. 43. Syed Tashfi n Chowdhury, “Bangladesh shipbreakers government for the fi rst time, partly in response to survive headwinds,” Asian Times, March 01, 2011, http:// its staggering and projected growth since 2008. This AT EXTREMES SCIGOL YDDUM