The Urban Refugee

Description

The presence of the refugee in the contemporary metropolis is marked by precarity, a quality that has become a characteristic feature of the neoliberal urban milieu. Bringing together essays from diverse disciplines, from architectural history to cultural anthropology and urban planning, this collection sheds light on both the specificities of the contemporary urban condition that affects the refugees and the multi-dimensional impact that the refugees have on the city. The authors propose investigating this connection through three interlinked themes: identity (informality, imagination and belonging); place (transnational homemaking practices); and site (the navigation of urban space).

In recent years, there has been a significant growth in scholarship on forced migration, particularly on the relationship between displacement and the built environment. Scholars have focused on spatial practices and forms that arise under conditions of displacement, with much attention given to refugee camps and the social and political aspects of temporariness. While these issues are important, the essays in this volume aim to contribute to a less explored aspect of displacement, namely the interaction between refugees and the cities they inhabit. In this respect, the volume underlines the specificity of the urban refugee as well as their spatial agency and investigates the irreversible effect they have on the contemporary urban condition.

The authors argue that viewing urban refugees solely as dislocated individuals outside the camp-like spaces of containment fails to understand the agency of the urban refugee and the blurred boundaries of identity that result. The term "refugee crisis" objectifies and denies active agency to refugees, homogenizing dislocated individuals and groups. The neoliberalization of the past four decades has led to the precarization of labour and the displacement of refugees, who frequently blend into the urban environment as hidden populations. Refugees are subjected to constant surveillance and the state's attempts to control them. However, these attempts are not uncontested, and the involvement of activist interventions further politicizes the urban refugee. 

List of Figures ix

Acknowledgements xi

Introduction: The Urban Refugee: Migration, Neoliberalism, and the City 1

      Bülent Batuman

Part 1. On Identity: Informality, Imagination, and Belonging 25

Chapter 1. Urban Refugees and Differential Inclusion through Urban Informality in Denizli, Turkey 27

      Eda Sevinin

Chapter 2. Syrian Children’s Imagination and Play Areas beyond the Physical Reality of Urban Spaces in Beirut 51

      Roula El Khoury and Paola Ardizzola

Chapter 3. From Longing to Belonging: Arab American Cultural Adaptation and Refugee Resettlement Practices in Houston, Texas and the Gulf Coast 73

      Maria F. Curtis

Part 2. On Place: Transnational Homemaking Practices 101

Chapter 4. Opening Your Home to The Other: Living with a Stranger, Citizens Hosting Exiles in Ile de France 103

      Stéphanie Dadour

Chapter 5. Housing Syrian Refugees in Saida under Protracted Displacement: Unfolding Spatial and Social Exclusion 127

      Howayda Al-Harithy, Abir Eltayeb, and Ali Khodr

Chapter 6. Transnational Homemaking in Somali Malls: Cape Town, and Minneapolis 159

      Huda Tayob

Part 3. On Site: Navigating the Urban Space 181

Chapter 7. Syrian Refugees’ Location Choice in Urban Areas as a Subjective Process: A Cross-case Comparison of Önder (Ankara) and Yunusemre (Izmir) Neighbourhoods 183

      Feriha Nazda Güngördü and Zerrin Ezgi Haliloğlu Kahraman

Chapter 8. Gaza Buildings: Architectures of Precarity in Sabra, Beirut 213

      Are John Knudsen

Chapter 9. Transience, Marginality, and Spaces of Refuge: Basmane Hotels District in Izmir 233

      Kıvanç Kılınç and Şebnem Yücel

Contributor Biographies 255

Index 259

Sujets

• Refugees
• Social History
• HISTORY
• Histoire
• Residential area
• Cultural Studies

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books
• Date de parution: 24 novembre 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781789389012
• Langue: English

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