Accessing heat: Environmental stigma and ‘porous’ infrastructural configurations in Ulaanbaatar

Abstract

This article explores the experience of living among diverse infrastructural configurations in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, and forms of stigmatisation that arise as a result. In this capital city that experiences extremely cold winters, the provision of heat is a seasonal necessity. Following a history of socialist-era, centrally provided heating, Ulaanbaatar is now made up of a core area of apartments and other buildings undergoing increased expansion, surrounded by vast areas of fenced land plots ( ger districts) not connected to centrally provided heating. In these areas, residents have historically heated their homes through burning coal, a technique that has resulted in seasonal air pollution. Expanding out from Wacquant’s definition of territorial stigmatisation, this article discusses the links between heat generation, air pollution and environmental stigmatisation arising from residents’ association with or proximity to the effects of heat generation and/or infrastructural lack. This type of stigma complexifies the normative divide between the city’s two main built areas. Residents’ attempts to mitigate forms of building and infrastructural ‘quality’ or chanar (in Mongolian) form ways of negotiating their position as they seek different kinds of property. Here, not only are bodies vulnerable to forms of pollution (both air and otherwise), but also buildings and infrastructure are vulnerable to disrepair. Residents’ assessments of infrastructural and building quality move beyond any categorisation of them being a clear ‘resistance’ to deteriorating infrastructural conditions. Instead, an ethnographic lens that positions the viewpoint of the city through these residential experiences reveals a reconceptualisation of the city that challenges infrastructurally determined normative assumptions.

Introduction: Infrastructural stigma and urban vulnerability

“…Unlike in territorial stigmatisation, this form of defamation is not necessarily linked to a demarcated location but to particular socio-technical arrangements. In fact, several papers in this collection focus on the way infrastructural stigma targets non-sedentary or highly mobile groups, who are not 'plugged in' to networked services in the same manner as sedentary residents (Moreno-Leguizamon and Tovar-Restrepo, 2021;Yacobi and Milner, 2021;Plueckhahn, 2021). Therefore, in contrast to Wacquant's place-based stigma, the stigma of infrastructural disconnect is in fact often linked to the absence of a delineated territory.…”

From the ger districts to the city centre: contrasts and inequities of access and mobility in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

“…Ger districts not only constitute a location for low-income, rural-urban migrants at different stages of urban relocation, they also form attractive and affordable spaces to live for increasing middle-income citizens (Byambadorj et al 2011). Overall, they lack running water, sewage systems and central heating across many districts (Dore and Nagpal 2006), meaning that one of the key distinctions between Ulaanbaatar's two main built environments, and one of the main determinants of living experience between the two areas, is highly unequal infrastructural provision (Plueckhahn 2021). However, while apartment areas may contain centrally provided heating, running water and sewerage, the advantages of living in one area over another are not so clear cut and many different kinds of demographics live in both areas (Byambadorj et al 2011).…”

“…Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia's capital and largest city has doubled in size from 700,000 inhabitants at the turn of the twenty-first century to approximately 1.5m today (World Population Review 2020). The bulk of new arrivals have settled into ger districts (Long 2017), vast areas that vary considerably in services and generally lack forms of core infrastructure provision including water, sewerage or centrally provided heating services (Plueckhahn 2021).…”

Social Sustainability and Ulaanbaatar’s ‘Ger Districts’: Access and Mobility Issues and Opportunities

“…The ger districts are sometimes compared to informal housing areas across the Global South [6,7], and there are some similarities with regards to the provision of basic infrastructure and services. For example, most ger district households are not connected to municipal sewerage and sanitation networks, and houses, known as baishin, are not connected to centrally provided heating networks [8]. Most homes feature outside pit latrines and residents are usually obliged to collect clean water from communal water kiosks for a small charge [5].…”