INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES’ PERCEPTION OF ASSOCIATION WITH A PLACE, CULTURAL CAPITAL AND ENABLING ENVIRONMENT IN AN URBAN CONTEXT

Abstract

Indigenous communities feel alienated in their cities even though cultural interventions are constantly made for them. The present research explores the reasons behind it and aims to capture the Indigenous communities’ perception of their relationship with the city and determine various factors that influence their perception in an urban context. It has been suggested that communities’ perception of their association with the place is influenced by their perception of cultural capital as well as enabling environment in an urban context. Further, their perception is determined by the constituents of cultural capital and enabling environment derived from their cultural values. Furthermore, propositions are made regarding influence of urban factors, physical attributes and socio-demographic characteristics on communities’ perception on place relationship, cultural capital and enabling environment. The literature review presents intensive research with place relationship, particularly in environmental psychology. However, studies linking cultural capital and enabling environment are limited.Furthermore, such studies in the urban context are rare to find. There is a lack of studies in the Indian urban context despite large Indigenous population thriving in the country. Moreover,many of the areas that are protected by constitution for Indigenous population are undergoing rapid urbanization. Furthermore, there is a lack of studies that empirically link the three aspects (urban factors, physical attributes and socio-demographic characteristics) for the Indigenous communities in the urban context. The literature also highlights the need to capture diverse cultural and geographic context in understanding place relationship in order to further develop these theories which are often stated to be in its development stage. In today’s environment association with the city is considered of significant quality, desired for making cities culturally inclusive thus facilitating sustainable community development as directed by United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 11. For it, the research adopts the positivistic approach and uses qualitative data using insiders’ perspective of the Indigenous communities. This empirical research is undertaken among Indigenous communities from Ranchi and Shillong city. The analysis is carried out using Structural Equation Modeling in SPSS AMOS 25 Graphics platform. Findings are also correlated and validated with objective assessment using cultural mapping and secondary data review. The findings show that the perception of Indigenous communities’ place relationship is strongly influenced by their perception of cultural capital and enabling environment in the urban context. Abstract vi | P a g e In the entire concept, the enabling environment plays the base role and cultural capital plays a mediating role. Thus, it is vital to undertake a comprehensive approach and positive perception of enabling environment as these are prerequisite to the cultural capital interventions. Further, the present research also establishes that perception of cultural capital and enabling environment is an umbrella concept where communities perceive the umbrella concept through a web of attributes based on Indigenous ideologies. Furthermore, the study also indicates that communities’ perception is influenced by the urban context and the physical attributes of their cultural places in their city. The findings made in this research have paved ways for several recommendations for related policy-formation.