Land from wetland

Abstract

The notion of an urban frontier involves the idea of a border between areas based on differences along various axes such as the nature and degree of development and what constitutes the urban. Cities often draw upon such frontier regions for a variety of resources, of which, land is perhaps the most crucial. This article focuses on a ‘frontier’ in the city of Kolkata in eastern India—the East Kolkata Wetlands (EKW)—and the different meanings that land takes on there. While the creation of ‘new’ land is facilitated by the material properties and definitional ambiguities of the wetlands, the absorption of the land into standard processes of urbanisation is resisted by invoking ideas of nature. However, the conceptualisation of nature in this case is a functional one that does not do justice to the diversity of livelihood options and development trajectories possible in frontier lands. The article ends with some brief reflections on the specificities of the EKW as an urban frontier, the relationship between development and environmental protection and the possibilities in reimagining the future of frontier lands.