English
Bachelor of Arts 15 Credits VT 2021
Asko Kauppinen
International Intrusion in China
Miéville‘s The City & The City
Construction and Deconstruction of Ideological State
Apparatus
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ... 2
2. Borders as Ideology ... 5
3. Forms of the Ideological Apparatus ... 12
4. International Intrusion through Foreign Capital ... 24
5. Conclusion ... 33
1. Introduction
China Miéville is most known for his literary works in the New Weird genre of fiction, skirting the border between weird, surreal and fantastic. His 2009 novel The City & The City breaks from his previous portfolio by being crime fiction. It follows Inspector Tyodor Borlú of the Besźel Crime Unit in his investigation into the murder of a foreign university student. What complicates the case is that the fictional city-state Besźel shares the exact geographic location as its twin and opposite city-state Ul Qoma. The cities share streets and
neighborhoods but are separated by a cultural, psychological and sociological barrier. Each inhabitant, unsees, ignores the other city; its inhabitants, architecture, culture, sounds and smells. To break this border is to breach and the offender is apprehended by Breach, an inter-city secret police organization, never to be seen again. The entire coexistence of the cities is based on this act of unseeing.
In the cities breaching is the most severe crime of all, an act that disrupts the very fabric of their shared society and which dissolves any right the culprit might have had. The agency Breach have full jurisdiction over the people breaching the borders, functioning as judge, jury and executioner. Besźel and Ul Qoma have their own laws, and the three have to coexist in a precarious balance. In his investigation Tyodor Borlú comes in contact with all three; Breach, Besźel and Ul Qoma, while uncovering a conspiracy with connections to an international corporation.
Miéville is a prolific and award winning author, with a doctorate in international law. Together with a political focus, this has caused his works to be analyzed, discussed and debated in a variety of ways. The City & The City is no different. The major interest of previous research has been centered on international law and the dystopian elements of Breach as a secret police force and unseeing. There seem to be a lack of focus on how the
borders that are policed actually function, and few mentions of unseeing‘s ideological components. Some, like Carl Freedman and Johan Schimanski mention how unseeing is rooted in ideology, and Schimanski makes use of Louis Althusser‘s ―Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses‖ in his research of how unseeing creates disorientation. Neither delves any deeper into how the ideology produces itself or is portrayed in Miéville‘s novel.
I claim that by investigating how unseeing and Breach is presented as
ideological structures in The City & The City one may gain insight into not only the novel, but also ideological structures in the real world. By using Althusser‘s theory one can gain a larger understanding of the structures and how they implement unseeing within the setting of
Miéville‘s novel.
In The City & The City the structures that lay the foundation for unseeing and the way of life in Besźel and Ul Qoma are threatened. As Borlú narrates his way through both cities as the murder case lead him through them, spots of intrusion become apparent. Tourists, refugees, and foreign investors perforate the barrier that keeps the cities whole. New elements are introduced that confuse and upset the established order; foreign idioms (11), international fashion (18) and casual breaching (186-187). These are symptoms of a bigger cause. With the cities becoming more globalized, the international community intrudes upon their shared culture and introduces doubt where there previously were none. There is a clash between two ideologies; forcing them to question and reconcile with themselves.
In this essay I will argue that the fictional cities Besźel and Ul Qoma share an ideology as defined by Louis Althusser and that the international community – represented by North American capitalist interests – is intruding and eroding the ideological structures. To do so I will introduce Althusser‘s idea of the ideological state apparatus, how it is represented in Miéville‘s novel in the ideology of unseeing and breaching shared between the cities as well as how the state apparatus is constructed and what forms it uses. These forms are best
explained by Caroline Levine‘s Wholes, Rhythms, and Hierarchies as described in her Forms;
Wholes, Rhythm, Hierarchy, Network (2015). In the following chapters I will disseminate and
explain the ideology of unseeing and breaching, how the ideological state apparatus is produced and structured within the setting of The City & The City, and how this apparatus is subverted and deconstructed by the international community.
Chapter 1: ―Borders as Ideology‖ will introduce Althusser‘s theory of Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses, explain its relevance to the novel and its setting, and define the underpinning ideology of Besźel and Ul Qoma in The City & The City and its connection to borders.
Chapter 2: ―Forms of Ideological Apparatus‖ is going to introduce Levine‘s theories on different forms and show how they structure the ideological apparatuses and institutions of Besźel and Ul Qoma in The City & The City, as well as how the ideology produces and reproduces itself through those apparatuses and institutions.
Chapter 3: ―International Intrusion through Foreign Capital‖ will detail the intrusion of foreign institutions, their nature and how they disrupt the previously explained ideological state apparatuses. I will analyse how the international community both erodes and subverts the structures of the native ideology of Besźel and Ul Qoma.
2. Borders as Ideology
I argue that the setting of The City & The City is founded upon an ideology of which unseeing and breaching are but parts of. This ideology of Borders – which I will call it for the lack of a better term – produces the conditions as they are presented in the novel; unseeing, breaching, and the co-existence of two nations in the same geographical space. To understand this ideology of Borders, I have turned to Louis Althusser‘s theory of ideology and will present how it connects to The City & The City‘s setting.
Althusser builds his theory of ideology in ―Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses‖ on the Marxist idea of ideology as ―the system of the ideas and representations which dominate the mind of a man or a social group‖ (107). Althusser continues upon this definition of ideology in two ways; first, that ―Ideology represents the imaginary relationship
of individuals to their real conditions of existence‖ (109) and second, that ―Ideology has a material existence‖ (italics in the original) (112).
The first definition and thesis of ideology as stated by Althusser is that ideology represents – that is, interprets the world – and superimposes an illusion or rather an ―allusion‖ of the material world. Therefore, when Althusser states that something is ―imaginary‖ he means that it exists as abstract concepts; ideas, values, beliefs, etc. ―Conditions of existence‖ simply means how a person‘s material reality looks like; food, shelter, health. Ideology can as such be defined as the way ideas control how people perceive and value the world around them. The ideology of Borders that Besźel and Ul Qoma share creates borders where there are none. Carl Freedman argues in his article ―From Genre to Political Economy: Miéville‘s The
City & The City and Uneven Development‖ against The City & The City being fantastical,
stating that ―the novel can be regarded ‗as being beyond the genre of SF, since its bizarre, alternative geography is the product of ideological rather than material difference‘ [italics in the original]‖ (17). Besźel and Ul Qoma are two city-states which share the same
geographical space and location and therefore have no clear, physical or distinct borders. Instead the borders have to be created through a shared ideology.
However, ideology cannot exist on its own, since it is a part of the
superstructure; the systems of society such as law, religion, and education, and is supported
by the base; the economic and material base of society (Althusser 90-91). To exist, ideology must be grounded in physical – material – reality. Ideology is not created by the subject – individual, person – believing in it, but is created through actions based upon that belief.
The individual in question behaves in such and such a way, adopts such and such a practical attitude, and … participates in certain regular practices which are those of the ideological apparatus on which ‗depend‘ the ideas which he has in all consciousness freely chosen as a subject. (Althusser 113)
Althusser states that the practices, the acts of the ideological apparatus, are made based on the ideas of the practitioner, but the ideas depend on the practices. By adopting the practices, one adopts the ideas associated with the practices. The acts are what you are doing, while the ideas are why you are doing the acts. An ideology is moot if there is no one to practice it. That is what Althusser means with ―Ideology has a material existence.‖ The ―material‖ used by ideology are the people that use and ―inhabit‖ it. A subject of ideology does not have to believe in it, but follow the ideas laid out by it. The subject needs to ―‗act according to his ideas‘‖ (113) as they are given by the ideology. In The City & The City the ideology of Borders demand that one partakes in the act of unseeing, to ignore the other city. However, one does not need to believe in it as exemplified with tourists. While tourists need to be educated on the ideology of Borders within both cities before being granted entry to either one, there is no demand for visitors to internalize the ideology.
After a two-week or however-long-it-was course, no one thought visitors would have metabolized the deep prediscursive instinct for our borders that Besź and
Ul Qomans have, to have picked up real rudiments of unseeing. But we did insist that they acted as if they did. We, and the authorities of Ul Qoma, expected strict decorum, interacting with, and indeed obviously noticing, our crosshatched neighbouring city-state not at all. (Miéville 76)
The visitors learn to act in accordance with the cities‘ ideology, learning the ideas; why the act is deemed necessary, but do not have to believe in them. Meanwhile, the natives have been indoctrinated into the ideology from childhood to the point of forming their ontological view of the world. In the novel, Borlú meets up with a colleague in a
―crosshatched‖ part of the cities, a space in which the cities overlap and ―share‖ the same space. In Ul Qoma the street is bustling with people, while in Borlú‘s native Besźel it is almost deserted.
In Besźel the area was pretty unpeopled, but not elsewhere across the border, and I had to unseeing dodge many smart young businessmen and –women. Their voices were muted to me, random noise. That aural fade comes from years of Besź care. When I reached the tar-painted front where Corwi waited with an unhappy-looking man, we stood together in a near-deserted part of Besźel city, surrounded by a busy unheard throng. (Miéville 45)
Borlú not only acts as the ideology of Borders dictates – unseeing foreigners moving through the other city – but perceives the world through an ideological ontology; filtering out the other city. Physically he is located in a crowd, but in the world perceived by Borlú it is ―near-deserted.‖ The reason given for this perception is that it ―comes from years of Besź care.‖
This ideological indoctrination is made possible through what Althusser calls ―Ideological State Apparatuses‖ or ISA. Althusser bases the notion on Pascal, that instead of beliefs dictating actions, it is actions that dictate belief; ―Pascal says more or less: ‗Kneel
down, move your lips in prayer, and you will believe‘‖ (114). Continuous practices of ideological actions impart the ideology upon the subject, reinforced by unseeing being described as a learned action.
The early years of a Besz (and presumably an Ul Qoman) child are intense learning of cues. We pick up styles of clothing, permissible colours, ways of walking and holding oneself, very fast. Before we were eight or so most of us could be trusted not to breach embarrassingly and illegally… (Miéville 66) Children in both cities are taught how to unsee and avoid breaching the ontological borders created by the ideology of Borders both cities share. This education is brought through practice and is according to Althusser an important part of the construction of ideology; ―an ideology always exists in an apparatus, and its practice, or practices‖ (112). The Ideological State Apparatuses are the main perpetrators of these practices. It is important to note that ―State‖ as expressed by Althusser is not the government, but rather all the
institutions and systems that form the nation state; police, military, courts, schools, religion (92). To avoid any confusion I will omit ―state‖ when talking about the apparatuses, instead referring to them as ideological apparatuses.
Althusser identifies several different institutions that work as ideological apparatuses; religion, family, education, political system, communications, culture, and the legal framework (96). For my purposes I will focus primarily upon education and culture, due to them taking the most prominent roles as ideological apparatuses in The City & The City. Here I make different definitions than those of Althusser. Education is not solely the class rooms or university, but the continuous act of learning and the reinforcement of such through both the public and private. Culture is literature, language, architecture, clothing, etc. Neither family nor religion are explicit parts of the ideology of Borders, nor is the political systems of either city.
The purpose and function of ideological apparatuses is to propagate the ruling ideology. According to Althusser this propagation is secured through two strategies;
repression and ideology. While ideological apparatuses are primarily ideological, Althusser states that ―…Ideological State Apparatuses function massively and predominantly by ideology, but they also function secondarily by repression…‖ (98). Repression of threats to the ruling ideology can take many forms; violent suppression, censorship, exclusion, removal, etc. In The City & The City, the repression takes the form in official and unofficial
institutions, represented by the law – censorship and police – and the agency Breach. Unificationists – people wanting to unite Besźel and Ul Qoma – are anathema to the cities‘ shared ideology of Borders, and are barely tolerated in Besźel (Miéville 43) and outright illegal in Ul Qoma (161). Maps of the city/cities without the borders are illegal in both cities and literature concerning unification is highly censored. When Borlú and his colleague interrogate an unificationist in one of their locales, both of them note the borderline illegal paraphernalia.
On a wall a large-scale map of Beszel and Ul Qoma. To avoid prosecution the lines and shades of division were there – total, alter, and crosshatched – but ostentatiously subtle, distinctions of grayscale. […] ―You want me to go through your books? How many are on the proscribed list? … This place has Insulting Besź Sovereignty in the Second Degree flashing over it like neon.‖ (46-47) Any inclination of a united city-state is deemed a threat to the independence, the ―sovereignty‖ of Besźel or Ul Qoma. Due to this the unifs, as they are called, are kept on a close leash with their groups being described as ―Swiss cheese‖ due to the large amount of informers and moles in them (Miéville 43). Ironically, the existence of dissidents such as the unificationists, ―bad subjects‖ as put by Althusser, legitimizes the more feared institution of repression; Breach. ―Bad subjects‖ provoke the ideological apparatus by challenging it,
necessitating an intervention of repressive force and disciplinary actions (Althusser 123). If anything, the dissidence of the unificationists makes them more aware of the ideology of Borders than any other group; ―A political irony. Those most dedicated to the perforation of the boundary between Besźel and Ul Qoma had to observe it most carefully― (Miéville 52). And they do have a reason to fear Breach as Douglas Guilfoyle describes Breach in ―Reading
The City and the City as an International Lawyer: Reflections on Territoriality, Jurisdiction
and Transnationality‖ as ―…both an extra-legal agency operating from (and conducting renditions to) Guantanamo-like non-places and also a bureaucracy subject to quaintly legalistic restraints‖ (202). Breach intervenes whenever someone breaks the ideological border between Besźel and Ul Qoma, a crime called breaching. Breach is de jure overseen by an Oversight Committee composed of politicians from both Besźel and Ul Qoma, submitting justifications after the fact (Miéville 68). In reality, the agency is de facto independent of the governments. Breach is not only the agency or the crime but also a place in which Breach the agency has full jurisdiction as told to Borlú by the agent Ashil; ―‘Then they‘re in Breach, and they‘re ours‘‖ (257). Breach as an agency is an agent of the cities‘ ideology of Borders.
While repression of threats against the ruling ideology secures it, the second way ideology ensures its continued existence is by producing ideology. What this means is that the previous incarnation of the ideology reproduces itself through the conditions of its production. As stated previously; an ideology is made through actions supported by the ideological apparatus. The ideology of Borders is created through the acts of unseeing its subjects partake in. Breach as an agency gives a more concrete example. Peter Cowley and Barbara Hanna note in ―Breach of Contact: An Intercultural Reading of China Miéville‘s The
City and The City‖ that agents of Breach are ―…all former breachers, pressganged into
service‖ (19). The previous generation or iteration of Breach produces the next iteration. This is true for the act of unseeing as well; the previous generation of citizens teaching their
children to unsee. Reinforced by Breach; ―seizing wrong-doers and removing them from the cities. For foreigners, this means deportation; for locals, disappearance‖ (Cowley and Hanna 17). The ideological apparatus creates a ―zone‖ for it to exist and reproduce in; either by appropriating ―former breachers‖ or by ejecting the threats to itself. In effect erecting a barrier in which the ideology is safe.
3. Forms of the Ideological Apparatus
The ideological apparatus of Borders; the practices that create the ideology of Borders that keep the cities apart and independent, is itself dependent on the cities‘ independence. I will explain this by building upon what Althusser means by ―ideology has a material existence.‖ For while Althusser gives ideology a material existence, that it is created and perpetuated by material actions of its subjects, he fails to mention the conditions of those actions. In The City
& The City the material conditions for unseeing are paramount. Despite the ontology of its
citizens being heavily controlled by the ideology of Borders, it is still based upon material reality. The material reality both affects and is affected by the ideological apparatus, as well as influencing the forms taken.
To better understand how the ideology of Borders is construed and how it produces itself within the cities, I will analyse the institutions based on the forms; Wholes, Rhythms, and Hierarchies as described in Caroline Levine‘s Wholes, Rhythm, Hierarchy,
Network (2015).
The ideology of Borders – the underlying ideology of both Besź and Ul Qoman society and culture – need several criteria to continue existing. The first is to be spatially isolated, separated from outside influence. The second is the city-states‘ differences, that they are diverged from one another. The third is the citizens‘ partaking in the practices of the ideological apparatuses. Each of these criteria can be seen through the lens of what Levine calls forms; first Wholes, secondly Hierarchy, and thirdly Rhythm.
Levine states that ―‘form‘ always indicates an arrangement of elements – an
ordering, patterning, or shaping [italics in the original]‖ (3). Forms are defined as ordering
principles. Each type of form has a different affordance; ―the potential uses or actions latent in materials and designs‖ (6). Wholes separate through inclusion and exclusion; hierarchies
structure relations into uneven dichotomies; rhythms create repetition and temporal organization.
Wholes need through definition boundaries. To be a self-contained unity and independent, a whole necessitates exclusion and inclusion; the difference between what ―belongs‖ and what is the other. Levine writes that ―totalities depend for their own coherence on violent acts of expulsion and abjection‖ (26). Wholes contain and protect but also forces unity and homogeneity upon the contained. To enter one must submit to the rules of the whole. Breaking those rules is cause for removal.
The City & The City‘s Besźel and Ul Qoma both keep a strict border against the
outside world due to the fragility of the ideology of Borders they follow. As Borlú describes it; ‖Some [refugees] must make it through and into one city or the other, but if they did it would be almost impossible for them not to breach, without immigration training. Our borders were tight‖ (Miéville 56). Immigrants are put into reeducation camps (56, 157) and visitors require mandatory education (76) to be allowed to enter either city. Any breaching of the ideology of Borders; failing to follow its practices by seeing the other city, are cause for expulsion. A prime example is when the Gearys – parents of the murder victim – breach and is forcefully deported by Breach:
…they [Breach] would sequester the Gearys, and in some hidden way Breach would watch them onto the plane … Our embassy in the US would already be informed, as well as the representatives in Ul Qoma, and a no visa flagged their names on both our systems. Once they were out, they would not be back in. (94) Anything that threatens the ideology of Borders is removed permanently from the space of the cities. Foreign threats to the all-encompassing whole that separate both cities from the rest of the world are expunged through collaboration between two ideological
apparatuses; education and Breach. The physical borders of the cities work in tandem with the ideological borders to ensure that the material unity of the cities is kept whole.
While Besźel and Ul Qoma have a united front against outside interference, they are distinct entities. The shared ideology of Borders, is paradoxically enough, dependent on the differences between the two city-states. Just as the cities together form a whole separated from the world at large, each city-state is itself a whole. Each city fosters a strong sense of patriotism and nationalism as put by Carl Freedman (2013); ―Miéville constructs a figure of xenophobic division that is rendered chemically pure, so to speak, by being shown to be completely formal. […] …there do not seem to be any significant matters of ethnicity or religion or political doctrine over which the twin cities are opposed‖ (23). Freedman view the borders as arbitrary, stating that there are no large differences between the two cities.
Freedman misses a crucial point in the fact that the differences are not purely formalistic. The cities do have distinct differences in their culture, politics and religion. The misconception of the cities as one city occupied by different states or the view of it as a cosmopolitan unity is widespread according to Peter Cowley and Barbara Hanna (5). Yet they try to find ways to reconcile the two by searching for a third place, a cultural hybridity;
Should we not expect that a narrative which in many ways has shown itself aware of current discourses about cultural difference make room for a third place, and might such a space not be a place of hybridity or intercultural contact? (11)
Cowley and Hanna mistakenly look for an intercultural, cosmopolitan place within the cities. They are trying to find a place where the Besźel and Ul Qoman cultures can mix together. The search is doomed to fail due to the sharp distinctions between the cultures being one of cornerstones for their continued existence.
Like Freedman, Cowley and Hanna have a misconception but from the
opposite perspective. While both city-states are independent, they are ultimately codependent to each other. The cities need to differentiate each other to secure their independence by forming the material conditions for their shared ideology of Borders. For the citizens of either city to unsee the other, they must differentiate between Besźel and Ul Qoma creating an oppositional dichotomy. This is not as simple as west-east, capitalism-communism, and European-Arabic dichotomies. China Miéville says in an interview with Geoff Manaugh:
…I didn‘t want to make it narrowly, allegorically reductive, in any kind of lumpen way. I didn‘t want to make one city heavy-handedly Eastern and one Western, or one capitalist and one communist, or any kind of nonsense like that. I wanted to make them both feel combined and uneven and real and
full-blooded. (2011)
Miéville wants to avoid allegorical comparisons, deeming them reductive, and instead tried to give them an interwoven, paradoxical relation. To make them feel both
combined and uneven.
The differences are therefore more complex. What is striking is the sheer materiality of the forms that are used to ensure that each city-state has unity and is ―whole‖, and therefore independent. While it is stated that the unseeing of the citizen of the opposite city is primarily based on ―styles of clothing, permissible colours, ways of walking and holding oneself‖ (Miéville 66), there is a need for other material differences: architecture, language, food, and more noticeable; economic situation. The wholes of Besźel and Ul Qoma are not only created through culture and its expressions, but also through an economic
hierarchy.
Caroline Levine writes of hierarchies as forms which ―arrange bodies, things, and ideas according to levels of power or importance‖ (82). She continues in relation to
binary opposites – such as Besźel and Ul Qoma – that ―the post-structuralists who followed [structuralists] argued that these binaries were always covertly hierarchical…‖ (82). These hierarchies of binary oppositions are described by post-structuralists as unstable. Besźel and Ul Qoma are no different; ―As the river industry of Besźel had slowed, Ul Qoma‘s business picked up‖ (Miéville 44). The implication is that the economic hierarchy of the cities are constantly shifting and changing. Further implicated with Borlú noticing the differences between Besźel and Ul Qoman police cars; ―Their [Ul Qoman] cars are charcoal and
streamlined Renaults. I remember when they drove ugly little local-made Yadajis, more boxy than our [Besźel‘s] own vehicles‖ (130). Of note is that Ul Qoma can import Renaults, when it previously produced cars by itself, an example of foreign interest in the Ul Qoman
economy.
Levine warns of viewing binaries as intrinsically hierarchical; ―I want to separate the form of the binary from the form of the hierarchy‖ as well as the opposite; ―it is also true that some hierarchies are not binaries‖ (84). The City & The City give examples of these two statements. The first, that a binary is not necessarily hierarchical can be seen in how Besźel and Ul Qoma handle weeds:
…winter buddleia … a traditional urban weed in Besźel, but not in Ul Qoma where they trim it as it intrudes… the Besźel part of a crosshatched area, each bush [of winter buddleia], emerged unkempt for one or two or three local buildings, then would end in a sharp vertical plane at the edge of Besźel. (Miéville 44)
In a crosshatched area, the cities‘ buildings are spread out amongst each other, with one of the notable differences being how the weed thrives in Besźel and is lacking in Ul Qoma. Does the Besź population not have the economy to remove weeds? It is unlikely, and
the way it is described, with the weeds ending in a ―sharp vertical plane‖ at the borders between Besźel and Ul Qoma imply that this is made to differentiate between the two cities.
The opposite of that all binaries are not hierarchical; that all hierarchies are not binary can in The City & The City be summed up as the globalized economical hierarchy. Both cities are part of the international community and have patrons amongst the larger economies; the US for Besźel, and Canada for Ul Qoma (92). Despite the binary economical hierarchy between the two city-states, they themselves are part of a larger, more complex, economical hierarchy. The cities are mocked by a corporate CEO at the novel‘s end: ―‘What do you think would happen if you provoked my government? It‘s funny enough the idea of either Besźel or Ul Qoma going to war against a real country‘‖ (287). The international CEO, Ian Croft, gives an insight into how the west perceives the cities. In the eyes of the economic powers, the city-states are barely seen as countries or nations.
Despite these exceptions of the binary hierarchy, the differences between Besźel and Ul Qoma are highly dependent upon the economic situation for both cities. This is made clear when Borlú and his colleague are interviewing potential witnesses of the murder:
Poverty deshaped the already staid, drab cuts and colours that enduringly characterise Besź clothes – what has been called the city‘s fashionless fashion. Of the exceptions, some we realized when we glanced were elsewhere, so unsaw, but the younger Besź were also more colourful, their clothes more pictured, than their parents. (18)
The style of clothing, muted and drab for Besźel, and by implication, colourful and vibrant for Ul Qoma, reinforces the economic disparity between the two cities. However, it also shows a threat to the ideology of Borders; the younger citizens of Besźel are wearing less traditional clothing and more ―international‖ fashion, a clue to the increased globalization of the cities. The departure of traditional Besź fashion confuses Borlú and by implication
disturbs the unseeing of the older generation. A crossing of ideological apparatuses; culture, and the government try to circumvent this issue by banning certain colours and hues. Some colours are forbidden in Besźel and vice versa in Ul Qoma (53, 59).
The economic disparity between the two cities is not only found in the clothing, but also the architecture, an important orientation point for its citizens. While they are
described as having different styles (17, 135), it is the differences in modernity that is focused upon; ―the carved and clockwork figures of Besź burghers on the town facades, ignoring, unseeing, the shinier fronts of the elsewhere, the alter parts‖ (44). The Ul Qoma fronts being described as shinier, is a clear distinction from the ―carved and clockwork‖ facades of Besźel. Throughout the novel, Ul Qoman architecture is presented as modern, made of steel and lit by neon while Besź architecture is presented as old, made of brick, stone and plaster. ―Cathedral spires were lit by glass skyscrapers. Recurved and crescent neoned architecture across the border‖ (38), ―curlicued wooden rooflines next to mirrored steel‖ (135), ―the buildings in Besźel were brick and plaster‖ (44).
The differences between the cities‘ infrastructure extend to locomotion; while the private transportation has already been touched upon, with Ul Qoma having sleek, modern cars and Besźel having older ―boxy‖ models, the public transportation differs as well. When in Ul Qoma, Borlú ―considered taking the subway, which I never had (there is nothing like it in Beszel)‖ (143). The differences in public transportation create a vertical dimension of movement between the cities. As Borlú observes; ―Ul Qomans emerged from below the street‖ (156) and ―Besź citizens doubtless descending from Yanjelus Station of the overland transit, which was by chance a few scores of metres from the submerged Ul Qoman stop‖ (157). The commuters in Ul Qoma are ascending, while their Besźel counterparts are
descending. One could see this as a metaphor for the economical situation between the cities,
opposition – up contra down, ascending contra descending – the act of unseeing is reinforced. The ground itself becomes a border which separates the citizens.
These oppositions create a binary of ―either or,‖ a clear divide between what is either Besźel or Ul Qoma, allowing their citizens to orient themselves in the intertwined spaces. Through the material conditions of their surroundings – the affordances of streets, architecture and transportation – the citizens‘ movements and actions are reinforced to follow the practices of the ideological apparatuses. The differences between the two ―wholes‖ construed by the cities‘ culture and architecture, and the hierarchy between them, help the subjects of the ideological apparatus to unsee the other. The material and static differences; colours and architecture for example, are an important part of the reproduction of the ideology of Borders. By grounding the practice of unseeing not only in spatiality, but also temporality – historical landmarks, old buildings, etc – the act is continuously reinforced through the
rhythm of everyday life.
Rhythm as a form has affordances of temporality, movement and change. Rhythm orders time and movement. For a rhythm to exist it needs to move through time. Caroline Levine states that rhythms as ―repetitive temporal patterns impose constraints across social life‖ (49). These constraints within The City & The City are not only based upon temporal movements, but also the materialism of spatial forms as discussed in the previous paragraph. However, one constraint of temporal pattern is mentioned several times; how the people in the cities walk (Miéville 12, 40, 143, 292, 295). It is an action that belongs to the individual city‘s ideological apparatus, as a form to reinforce the city‘s ―whole,‖ but due to that ―whole‖ being a necessary institution for the ideology of Borders to produce itself and how the practice of specific walks – or mannerisms – reinforce unseeing it becomes a part of the overarching and shared ideological apparatus of both cities.
This control of bodily movement – of the rhythm of a person‘s locomotion – is made possible through the ideological apparatuses of education and culture. The ideology of Borders
permeates the social strata of the cities. The way social formations make use of rhythms to enforce themselves is noticed by Levine which cites:
Pierre Bourdieu writes that ―the whole social order imposes itself at the deepest level of bodily dispositions through a particular way of regulating the use of time, the temporal distribution of collective and individual activities and the appropriate rhythm with which to perform them.‖ (50)
While Levine and Bourdieu discuss rhythms as parts of temporal institution, like Foucault‘s disciplinary institutions (60), I borrow the vernacular and form of Rhythm to explain the repetitions that are necessary within the ideological apparatus of education.
Unseeing is constantly repeated by the populations of Besźel and Ul Qoma, being an everyday occurrence. As a practice of the ideology of Borders, unseeing can both be seen as a collective action – every citizen partakes in it – as well as an individual act, due to it being used by the individual. The act itself has its own rhythm as well.
Unseeing is composed of three stages of rhythm; firstly, the subject sees an object, secondly the subject categorizes the object, thirdly the subject ignores the object. Unseeing is not a passive action, but an active one as described by Birke Otto, Justine
Grønbæk Pors and Rasmus Johnsen in their article ―Hidden in Full View: The Organization of Public Secrecy in Miéville‘s The City and the City‖: ―There is a short hesitation before one can allow oneself to see, to place the objects to be seen in either of the two cities. …objects are first categorized, and then, secondly, judged and as a result seen or ‗unseen‘‖ (97). John Schimanski describes unseeing in ―Seeing Disorientation‖ as orienting oneself in relation to the world around them: ―In order to unsee something that may not be seen, one must orient the gaze towards something which may be seen‖ (114). Schimanski continues; ―…there is a
moment of disorientation, in the split second preceding unseeing in which one recognises something enough to realise that it must be unseen‖ (114).
Through a repetition of this action‘s rhythm; seeing, categorizing/recognizing,
unseeing, the act of unseeing is imposed upon the individual to the point of doing it
automatically. The practice forms the basis of the ideological apparatus that reproduces it. The apparatus as an institution is dependent on this constant repetition. In her chapter on rhythms, Levine brings up institutions and a definition of them:
Political scientists James March and Johan Olsen define institutions as
―relatively enduring collection[s] of rules and organized practices, embedded in structures of meaning and resources that are relatively invariant in the face of turnover of individuals and relatively resilient to the idiosyncratic preferences and expectations of individuals and changing external circumstances.‖ (58) An institution is a system that can perpetuate itself independently of the individuals within it and the circumstances around it, in essence making the ideological apparatuses of the ideology of Borders a collection of institutions. Levine continues: ―Institutions endure, then, only because participants actively reproduce their rules and practices‖ (58). This sentiment is echoed by Ashil, an agent of Breach, in The City & The
City: ―‘It‘s not just us [Breach] keeping them apart. It‘s everyone in Besźel and Ul Qoma.
Every minute, every day. We‘re only the last ditch: it‘s everyone in the cities who does the most of the work….‘‖ (310). As Levine states: ―One of the crucial affordances of temporal rhythms – repetition – is thus essential to the endurance of institutions‖ (58). However, the repetitions of the practice necessary for the endurance of the ideology of Borders, unseeing, need to be protected from those that would threaten it.
Breach is the agency that forms one of most important ideological apparatuses and institutions of the ideology of Borders. Breach is both the enforcers of the ideological
practices; unseeing and its dependents. A majority of the power the Breach‘s agents have stems from their nature as bogeymen for the citizens of Besźel and Ul Qoma. The habitants of the cities are conditioned to not only unsee, but to revere and fear Breach as well; ―That Breach freeze, that obedience reflex shared in Ul Qoma and Besźel‖ (Miéville 273). For the inhabitants of the cities, agents of Breach are akin to supernatural; ―…the powers of Breach were always wrathful and as Old Testament as the powers and right to be‖ (52). They appear from nowhere; ―[Breach] seemed to coalesce from spaces between smoke from the accident‖ (66). Breach is felt by the characters as an omnipresent power, watching them and creating paranoia. ―She felt watched. We both did, and we were right, and fidgety‖ (53). This condition is created by the Breach‘s – as being a part of the ideological apparatus – knowledge of the forms that create unseeing.
The conditioning of unseeing and the forms it takes, such as clothing and mannerisms, is what allows the Breach to stay ―invisible‖ for the natives of the cities; to be ambiguously one or the other, a Besźel or Ul Qoma citizen. Breach agents are dressed in clothes that ―would be legal in either Besźel or in Ul Qoma‖ (252). Their names invite ambiguousness; ―Tye, like Ashil, was not traditional Besź, nor Ul Qoman, could just plausibly be either‖ (253), as well as the way they walk, their mannerisms; ―I was learning from [Ashil] how to walk between them, first in one [city], then the other, or in either…‖ (308). This stems from the knowledge granted by being a part of the ideological apparatus that enforces the practices of the ideology; unseeing. The identification with the ideological apparatus is taken to the extreme, as Douglas Guilfoyle writes ―They refer to themselves not as ‗agents‘ but ‗avatars‘— not servants but embodiments of the law they enforce‖ (202). It seems that the agents themselves believe in their power. They are not agents of Breach, but
are Breach as Ashil iterates: ―‘You will step back,‘ he shouted… ‗I am Breach‘ [italics in
the ideology it represents and reinforces; both its material conditions and the practices. ―The two cities need the Breach. And without the cities‘ integrities, what is Breach?‖ (68).
The interaction between the ideological apparatuses and institutions with their material conditions show how intertwined the ideology of Borders is with the infrastructure of both cities. The ideology reproduces and perpetuates itself within the confines of the
geographical space through the use of dichotomies and temporal organization. The practice of the ideology, unseeing is produced through material conditions; clothing, mannerism,
4. International Intrusion through Foreign Capital
The three criteria needed for the cities to sustain their ideology of Borders; spatial isolation, difference between the cities, and its citizens partaking in the ideological practices, are all threatened by outside forces. These outside forces are the international community, which in the novel is represented by the western world.
In this chapter I will analyze and disseminate how the international community – represented by western capitalism – erodes, deconstructs and subverts the criteria of Besźel‘s and Ul Qoma‘s shared ideology of Borders, primarily by how the international intrusion disrupts Breach and unseeing.
To do so, I will go through each step of the deconstruction of the criteria for the ideology of Borders made by the international community. Firstly, how the spatial isolation is intruded upon and how the cities‘ countermeasures are circumnavigated. Secondly, how the differences between the cities – their material conditions – are changed and disrupted by foreign capital. Thirdly, how the previous two help deconstruct the practices within ideological apparatus and how international representatives subvert the act of unseeing.
First, the intrusion of the cities‘ spatial isolation or rather independent territory is made through several venues. Tourism, immigration, economic and academic
establishments are what is mentioned in The City & The City. Tourism and immigration – both as refugees and as work migration – are under control by the cities‘ governments. Both tourists and immigrants need to be educated in unseeing (Miéville 56, 76, 157), to be allowed access. The cities‘ governments are therefore able to veto any entrance into the cities and any subsequent breach will end with the expulsion of the breacher (94). This creates a binary hierarchy with the cities‘ authorities being able to exert control over foreign individuals. However, this gives way for another dichotic hierarchy; where the cities‘ authorities are the weaker one of the pair.
Both cities are heavily criticized by the United Nations and Amnesty for their reeducation camps (157). Both cities are also reliant on the larger economies in a globalized world; the US for Besźel, and Canada for Ul Qoma (92). While Besźel, Ul Qoma and Breach have the power and authority over individuals, the establishments of western capital have the authority over them. This power dynamic is represented by Ian Croft, regional head of CorIntech, a subsidiary of Sear and Core, the company ultimately responsible for the murder (282-287). In the face of Ashil, an agent of Breach, the representation of the ideological apparatus of the ideology of Borders, Croft states:
―I‘m neither Besź nor Ul Qoman,‖ Croft said. … ―I‘m neither interested or scared of you. I‘m leaving. ‗Breach.‘‖ He shook his head. ―Freak show. You think anyone beyond these odd little cities cares about you? They [Besźel and Ul Qoma] may bankroll you and do what you say, ask no questions, they may need to be scared of you, but no one else does.‖ (286, 287)
What have, as previously described, been the bogeymen of the cities; Breach, is put into its place within the international hierarchy. This subversive element is brought in – even enticed by the cities‘ governments – due to the economic capital that they bring to the cities. The welfare of the cities is therefore reliant on outside economic interests. As mentioned in a conversation between Borlú and one of his colleagues: ―‘They‘re [political officials] not going to shunt off business meetings and whatnot like they would‘ve done once.‘ ‗Whoring it for the Yankee dollar‘‖ (57). Besźel try to get tech-companies – such as CorIntech –
established within its borders, while Ul Qoma – besides the economical interests – gain the focus of the academic world; strange artifacts are found in its soil and a Canadian university sets up an archeological dig (61-62).
The archeological finds are stated to be of great importance and value located on ―a site as important as Tenochtitlan and Sutton Hoo‖ (62), which has drawn the eye of the
international community. The artifacts are precious resources, gaining the interests of international companies such as Sear and Core, the corporation responsible for the murder (272-273). This brings me to the second point; how the differences between the cities – their material conditions – are changed by foreign capital.
Carl Freedman in ―From Genre to Political Economy‖ describes the cities‘ situation as one of uneven development, both as with the binary hierarchy in relation to each other but also in relation to the international capital (28). The economic disparity between Besźel and Ul Qoma help form one of the criteria for the ideology of Borders to reproduce itself. However, this disparity is brought on by foreign capital which intrudes upon both cities. Freedman states that uneven development ―manifests itself as a combination of development and underdevelopment [italics in original]‖ (27). Underdevelopment is defined as the result of another power siphoning the surplus resources that is produced (26), such that the ―resources are thus diverted away from the (especially industrial) domestic sectors that, if developed, could raise the standard of material consumption for the mass of the population‖ (27). As Freedman states, underdevelopment works in combination with development, of which ―the only segments of the national economy that are fully developed are those that can enrich the foreign masters … and, often, an indigenous comprador bourgeoisie as well‖ (27).
In The City & The City Besźel and Ul Qoma are of opposite sides; Besźel is underdeveloped and Ul Qoma is developed. International fashion and clothing is implicitly being imported into Besźel which disrupts unseeing (Miéville 18), a diversion from the Besź own defunct industry (44). For Ul Qoma as the developed counterpart, its economy might be booming but it is creating its own economic disparities; ―I could see the homeless dosing down in side streets, the Ul Qoman rough sleepers…‖ (143), Borlú notices when in Ul Qoma. The Ul Qomans described as having a ―mawkish sanctimoniousness about history‖ (62), have had their Old Town modernized: ―The Old Town of Ul Qoma was at least half transmuted
these days into a financial district, curlicued wooden rooflines next to mirrored steel‖ (135). The march of foreign capital has even caused other international institutions to intervene:
After mild censure from UNESCO, a finger-wag tied to some European investment, Ul Qoma had recently passed zoning laws to stop the worst of the architectural vandalism its booming occasioned. Some of the ugliest recent works had even been demolished, but still the traditional baroque curlicues of Ul Qoma‘s heritage sights were made almost pitiful by their giant young
neighbours. (135)
Here one of the material conditions for the ideology of Borders, architecture, is intruded and changed by foreign investment. It is also an example of what Freedman remarks; that it is only the parts of the economy that enrich the foreign investors that is developed (27). That is to say, Ul Qoman architecture and culture is not important, unless it can – like the archeological artifacts – be used for monetary gain. It also reveals a discerning detail of the economic hierarchy between the cities; it is reliant on international capital. Ul Qoma‘s
modern Renault cars are implicitly imported, when compared to ―locally made‖ models a few decades prior (Miéville 130), the city‘s steel and neon financed by transnational corporations. Douglas Guilfoyle states: ―…threats to the city-states of Besźel and Ul Qoma are depicted less as emanating from each other than from transnational criminality and even from the mobility of transnational corporations, refugees and academics‖ (203). While both Besźel and Ul Qoma are able to foresee the potential threat against the ideology of Borders by official international agents – nations, UN, EU, etc – they are unable, or willfully ignorant, of the unofficial agents – corporations and NGOs – giving them free passage into the ―whole‖ of the cities.
Caroline Levine describes ―Wholes‖ as incapable of keeping themselves isolated (24). Wholes as forms will come into contact and conflict with other forms, other wholes
(Levine 16). The whole of the cities‘ and its borders, both against the international community and each other, is founded and situated within the international community. Therefore the criteria for the ideological apparatus of the ideology of Borders – spatial isolation and material conditions – are intruded by and part of the foreign powers. Transnational
corporations are invited in past the borders of Besźel and Ul Qoma, their investments used to deface and replace architecture; fashion and styles that disrupts unseeing are imported.
At the end of the novel, the previously almost limitless powers of Breach are revealed to be a big fish in a small pond. The earlier described Biblical powers of Breach (Miéville 52), is transformed into a man bleeding out on the rooftop of an office building (286, 287). The wider hierarchy in which Breach, Besźel and Ul Qoma are a part of – the international community – is revealed on three fronts; ignorance, exploitation and subversion of unseeing and the ideology of Borders.
The first; ignorance, is not the lack of knowledge of unseeing or Breach. Rather it is the act of ignoring the power of either, exemplified by Ian Croft. When confronted by an agent of Breach, Croft brushes him off and invokes his status amongst the international community: ―‘What do you think would happen if you provoked my government? It‘s funny enough the idea of either Besźel or Ul Qoma going to war against a real country. Let alone you, Breach‘‖ (Miéville 287). Using his place in the international hierarchy as a bulwark, Croft is able to ignore the powers of Breach and in extension the ideology of Borders. His statement is no mere posturing either.
The second front; exploitation, is exemplified at the end of the novel. With Borlú‘s investigation coming to a close with the revelation that the murder was staged to hide a smuggling operation deemed an act of breach, political activists – unificationists – stage a revolt by crashing a bus full of refugees, causing a mass breach (275-276). Borlú quickly deduces that it is a diversion tactic; ―‘You‘ve seen the unifs [unificationists]. They‘re nothing.
… There‘s more agents than agitators; someone‘s given an order. Someone‘s engineered this because they‘ve realised we‘re onto them‘‖ (277). This relatively small action; a bus crash, creates enough chaos within the cities that Breach invokes ―Martial Breach.‖ It is described as ―no entrance to either city, no passage between them, ultrahard enforcement of all Breach rules‖ (275). The ―Martial Breach‖ lasts for thirty-six hours (307) in which the unificationist revolt is violently subdued (279). During the chaos, Breach is reminded of its place in the hierarchy, as agents – referred to as ―avatars‖ – are killed; ―‘It isn‘t possible,‘ Ashil said. ‗There is no way the head of Sear and Core, some outsider, could have constructed this… We‘ve…‘ He listened, set his face. ‗We‘ve lost avatars‘ [italics in original]‖ (280). Ashil is in disbelief that someone from outside the cities is able to start such chaos and even more so, cause the death of agents of Breach.
The exploitation is two-fold. One is the disruption of the ideology of Borders and its ideological apparatuses by introducing a mass influx of refugees which breaches and are unable to unsee (275). The second is the exploitation of the cities‘ internal struggles; the unificationists represent an opposite ideology to the one of Borders, namely one of Unity. But as Carl Freedman states, they are portrayed as ―marginalized and ineffective‖ (24), their revolt doomed to failure; ―we were in a moment of outright foregone conclusion, but the unifs still fought to mobilise populations deeply averse to their mission‖ (Miéville 280). In the end the unificationists are pawns used by foreign powers and still part of the ideology of Borders, becoming easy prey for Breach.
The third front; subversion, is used by the character David Bowden – a
Canadian professor of archeology and a key person in the murder – in his escape at the climax of The City & The City. During the upheaval, Borlú‘s counterpart and ally in Ul Qoma, Dhatt is able to locate Bowden at one of the borders between the cities, but is unable to apprehend him: ―‘…They don‘t think he‘s in Ul Qoma.‘ ‘He crossed? We need to talk to Besźel border
patrol then –.‘ ‗No, listen. They can’t tell where he is‘ [italics in original]‖ (292). The militsya – the law enforcement of Ul Qoma – cannot discern whether Bowden is in Ul Qoma or
Besźel. He has mimicked the methods of Breach – neutral clothes and ambiguous walk – to avoid the jurisdiction of either city.
―…He‘s [Bowden] been standing there, just outside the entrance, in full view, and then when he saw them [militsya] moving towards him he started walking… but the way he‘s moving… the clothes he‘s wearing… they can’t tell whether he‘s in Ul Qoma or Besźel.‖ (292)
Neither Besźel nor Ul Qoman law enforcement dares to touch him, let alone focus on him for fear of breaching (293). Bowden is not breaching either, his crossing to either city concealed in the chaos. His uncertain location within the cities causes him to be untouchable, a ―Schrödinger‘s pedestrian‖ (295). He subverts the practice of the ideology of Borders – unseeing – by manipulating its material conditions; space, clothes and mannerisms. In subversion akin to Breach‘s, Bowden uses the practice of unseeing to become unseen. The material conditions that otherwise make one visible and differentiable within the ideology of Borders is used to occlude and meld, shrouding Bowden.
Only Breach which move in the same ambiguous space as Bowden, yet in opposition to him; Bowden claims he is in ―either‖ city, while Breach claims to exist in ―neither‖, can see and interact with him safely. One could say that Bowden as an international individual is an interloper in the space of Breach.
Bowden had still not committed to where he was. I said, ―Which city are you in?‖ …
So I grabbed him by the scruff, turned him, marched him away. Under the authority I‘d been granted, I dragged Breach with me, enveloped him in it, pulled him out of either town and into neither, into the Breach. (303) Borlú overpowers Bowden, who as an individual is prey to the cities‘ authorities; including Breach.
Later, when discussing Bowden with a Breach agent – Ashil – Borlú asks how he could accomplish his mimicry.
―How could he do it? Walk like that?‖
―He‘s been a student of the cities,‖ Ashil said. ―Maybe it took an outsider to really see how citizens mark themselves, so as to walk between it.‖ (308) The subversion of unseeing is connected to Bowden‘s status as a foreigner to the cities and in extension the ideology of Borders.
Both Bowden and Croft are outsiders with knowledge of Breach, Besźel and Ul Qoma, with their individual actions being able to exploit, deconstruct, and subvert the
practices which produce the ideology of Borders. Yet, they are but representatives of the international community and what Carl Freedman describes as ―Empire,‖ a substitute and successor to formal imperialism and a result of the globalization of capitalistic accumulation:
…Where imperialism in its older forms has been largely superseded by Empire, in the sense given that term by the important work of Michael Hardt and
Antonio Negri. Hardt and Negri argue that… with the contemporary decline of traditional national sovereignties as the globalization of capital accumulation has gathered increasing force, a new type of sovereignty has arisen: ―a decentered and deterritorializing apparatus of rule‖ that works to take the entire planet as its domain without being at all centrally anchored… This new sovereignty is what they call Empire. (27)
Empire seeks to accumulate capital at the expense of everything else, ―deterritorializing‖ and deconstructing national sovereignties such as city-states. Besźel and Ul Qoma are no
different, their shared ideology of Borders used as a tool to further capitalistic exploitation. For it is revealed how the material conditions for the ideology of Borders – its three criteria – are both deconstructed and reliant on foreign investments. Territory, the spatial borders of the cities is casually breached by corporations and other institutions such as
universities. The material conditions for the dichotomy and differences between the cities is reliant and disrupted by foreign trade; international fashion, foreign investments, modern architecture supplanting the old. The practices of unseeing; its material conditions,
mannerisms, Breach, are subverted and used to circumvent the law. A corporation is able to kill, smuggle, and create a city wide riot all for a handful of archeological artifacts.
5. Conclusion
This essay set out to analyse how the concepts of unseeing and breaching in China Miéville‘s
The City & The City relate to Louis Althusser‘s ―Theory of Ideology,‖ how they are a part of a
larger ideology within the novel, one of borders, and how the ideology constructs itself through different forms as described by Caroline Levine in her Forms, Whole, Rhythm,
Hierarchy, Network and later how these forms necessary for the formation of the ideology and
its apparatuses are deconstructed and subverted by international forces exemplified by western capitalism.
While a large amount of research has been done surrounding unseeing and breaching in The City & The City, none had yet to investigate the underlying reason for these existences. I therefore found it important to bring this ideological underpinning to the
forefront and how the ideology could and was subverted by capitalist interests.
The end result is a mapping of the material conditions for the ideological state apparatuses that produce the cities ideology and how those conditions are connected to international capital and therefore vulnerable to exploitation. It shows how ideology and its apparatuses are reliant on material conditions for their existences, how these conditions can be used to perforate the apparatuses and how ideology cannot exist in isolation.
By revealing these conditions and how they help produce and reproduce ideology in a fictional work; how they are structured, how they can be deconstructed and subverted, I hope that this analysis can be used outside fiction and literature to gain a better understanding of the functions of ideology and its effects on society.
Works Cited
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Levine, Caroline. Forms, Whole, Rhythm, Hierarchy, Network. Princeton University Press, 2015.
Manaugh, Geoff. ―Unsolving the City: An Interview with China Miéville‖. BLDGBLOG, 1 Mar. 2011, https://www.bldgblog.com/2011/03/unsolving-the-city-an-interview-with-china-mieville/.
Miéville, China. The City & The City. Macmillan, 2009.
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