Towards Urban Geopolitics of Encounter: Spatial Mixing in Contested Jerusalem

The extent to which 'geographies of encounter' facilitate tolerance of diversity and difference has long been a source of debate in urban studies and human geography scholarship. However, to date this contestation has focused primarily on hyper-diverse cities in the global north-west. Adapting this debate to the volatile conditions of the nationally-contested city, this paper explores intergroup encounters between Israelis and Palestinians in Jerusalem. The paper suggests that in the context of hyper-polarisation of the nationally-contested urban space, the study of encounter should focus on macro-scale structural forces. In Jerusalem, we stress the role of ethnonationality and neoliberalism as key producers of its asymmetric and volatile yet highly resilient geography of intergroup encounters. In broader sense, as many cities worldwide experience a resurgence of ethnonationalism, illuminating the structural production of encounter may demarcate a broader function for reading contemporary urban geopolitics

Conclusions

This conclusion combines insights from the analysed of urban conflicts over peace(s) to answer the principal research question. The subsequent argument is that the postwar city reinforces rather than transcends its continuities of war into peace because urban conflicts over peace(s) attack its transcending potential and enhance its destructive potential while the city itself—untouched by postwar contestation—is destructive towards war-to-peace transitions. Yet the chapter also focuses on complementary explanations such as the routinisation of division and the impossibility to combine certain peace(s). It additionally presents an alternative picture of the postwar city by demonstrating that it also transcends its continuities of war in peace. The wider conclusions drawn from this ambiguity is that the postwar city is inherently Janus-faced, that it has a significant transcending potential, that there are no easy solutions to its problems, and that its unique situation necessitates cooperation between peace research and urban studies

The spatiality of violence in post-war cities

The world is urbanising rapidly and cities are increasingly held as the most important arenas for sustainable development. Cities emerging from war are no exception, but across the globe, many post-war cities are ravaged by residual or renewed violence, which threatens progress towards peace and stability. This collection of articles addresses why such violence happens, where and how it manifests, and how it can be prevented. It includes contributions that are informed by both post-war logics and urban particularities, that take intra-city dynamics into account, and that adopt a spatial analysis of the city. By bringing together contributions from different disciplinary backgrounds, all addressing the single issue of post-war violence in cities from a spatial perspective, the articles make a threefold contribution to the research agenda on violence in post-war cities. First, the articles nuance our understanding of the causes and forms of the uneven spatial distribution of violence, insecurities, and trauma within and across post-war cities. Second, the articles demonstrate how urban planning and the built environment shape and generate different forms of violence in post-war cities. Third, the articles explore the challenges, opportunities, and potential unintended consequences of conflict resolution in violent urban settings

Grasping the empirical realities of peace in post-war northern Mitrovica

While previous research has focused on the conflicts and division in Mitrovica, Kosovo, the present article explores how peace and conflict are intertwined in the post-war city by focusing on sites where communities live side by side in an otherwise segregated city. A key finding is that the most conflictual residential areas in northern Mitrovica also are places where what we call peace acts, peace issues and peace perceptions are found. Our research suggests that even in spaces in the city where a history of violence is entrenched, the situation can seldom be reduced to be seen only as purely conflictual; rather, these 'hotspots' often prove to be spaces where reproduction of peace – however quotidian – also occurs at the same time. This points us to the complexity of the realities of peace, where remnants of war and potential for a co-existing peace often overlap and are sometimes intrinsically intertwined.Vetenskapsrådet, projekt 2013-63