The Zoo
"Life behind bars"
The Emperor Valley Zoo is a modern small zoo located towards the Northern tip of the Queen’s Park Savannah. It has a wide variety of both indigenous and foreign animals, the latter which includes tigers, lions and giraffes. As there is little research on the animals done here, the main function of the zoo is for recreation: it is designed for children and families to enjoy.
The picture above shows a caged monkey with a forlorn look on her face as she grasps the enclosure. You can’t help but feel some sympathy for the poor thing. This can be compared to the fencing off and privatization of urban spaces as discussed by Jaffe and Aguiar (2012), which can form a sense of social exclusion. Is this monkey feeling excluded from a free life? Does she reflect the feelings of socially excluded groups? In an article posted by the Guardian online, a chimpanzee escaped from her cage and went about exploring the zoo compound. She was sedated, unharmed, and returned to her cage. Could this be our same monkey friend, who got tired of life behind bars, and wanted to be rebellious? Does this reflect marginalized groups in society, who take to the streets to rebel?
But enough about the monkey. How does the Emperor Valley Zoo link to the theory of synecdoche? The city needs to be considered as a set of spaces where diverse ranges of relational webs coalesce, interconnect and fragment. The city is not a unitary entity and perhaps it never has been (Amin and Graham 1997). The presence of the zoo in Port of Spain helps to show that Port of Spain does not have a homogenous culture: together with the neighbouring Queen’s Park Savannah and the Botanical Gardens, the zoo helps to show the “green” or eco-friendly culture of the capital. Port of Spain is not all about cars or banking- it also has some spaces dedicated to nature, and all this is important for sustainable development of an urban area. The sustainable urban neighbourhood may not have the largest areas of open space, but should maximise on the opportunities for wildlife and biodiversity (Rudlin and Falk 1999).
References
Amin, A., and Graham, S. "The Ordinary City." Trans Inst Br Geog Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 22, no. 4 (1997): 411-29.
Chimp Recaptured at Emperor Valley Zoo. September 25, 2013. Guardian Newspaper. Retrieved April 5, 2016. http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/2013-09-25/chimp-recaptured-emperor-valley-zoo.
Rudlin, D and Falk, N. 1999. Building the 21st Century Home; The Sustainable Urban Neighbourhood. Oxford: Architectural Press.
