A sustained critique of postwar reconstruction in Syria as a politically neutral process

In 2011, emboldened by the Arab Spring, the Syrians rose up against their government. The Syrian regime used violence to suppress the protests, so that what began as pro-democracy protests eventually morphed into a civil war with heavy outside intervention. Today, the regime has regained partial control of the country, but large parts of it lie in ruins, millions of Syrians are displaced, and the economy is in freefall. Reconstruction as Violence delves into the complex interplay of post-conflict reconstruction in Syria, challenging the traditionally held dichotomy between the end of violence and the commencement of rebuilding.

The contributors to this volume—architects, urbanists, geographers, and historians—employ critical concepts such as urbicide, domicide, and “civilian crisis architecture” to argue against the conventional theoretical frameworks that support a neat separation of phases. They illustrate how reconstruction often extends the dynamics of conflict into the urban and social realms, suggesting that the built environment becomes a battleground for further violence. They emphasize the importance of acknowledging the historical, economic, societal, legal, and bureaucratic contexts that shape reconstruction efforts, arguing for initiatives that prioritize equity, inclusivity, and community participation.

Reconstruction as Violence starkly underscores the authors’ stance that to overlook any of these dimensions, or to disengage from the reconstruction process altogether, represents a political choice with potentially detrimental effects on Syria and beyond in the Arab world, where countries like Palestine, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Lebanon, and Sudan are undergoing similar cycles of destruction and rebuilding. It calls for a reimagined approach to reconstruction, one that fosters peace, resilience, and social justice in post-conflict societies.

The Call for Papers initiative, known as Critical and Conceptual Advances in Urban Studies, aspires to be a catalyst for groundbreaking research and thought-provoking discussions that will shape the future of urban studies and contribute to the sustainable and equitable development of cities around the globe. As a key part of the initiative, this call for The Urbanisation of Conflict and Conflict Urbanisation aims to develop new theoretical and empirically grounded insights into how conflict is being shaped by the urban and, in turn, how the urban is being transformed by war.

Cover article for Cityscapes providing an overview of the urban conflicts raging throughout the Arab world.

In 2016, the Kuwait Mitribah weather station recorded a scorching 53.9 degrees Celsius, among the highest temperatures ever recorded on earth. Today, temperatures in Kuwait frequently exceed 50 degrees Celsius during the summer, accompanied by a host of extreme weather events such as severe droughts, dust storms, and floods. These climate challenges threaten and transform Kuwait’s social and ecological landscape. To address these pressing issues, this paper adopts an urban climate justice framework, emphasizing the right to the city, recognition justice, and advocating for a climate-just city. Through this lens, we examine how climate change disproportionately affects Kuwait’s structurally vulnerable populations, particularly the majority non-citizen groups: the Bidoon (stateless) and low-wage migrant workers. This paper highlights the necessity of including marginalized groups in climate change discussions along with climate adaptation and mitigation policies. By examining the everyday urban lives of Kuwait’s non-citizen residents – including their struggles with access to civil and political rights; poor housing and labor conditions; and inequitable access to basic urban services, such as water, electricity and transport − this paper demonstrates how these factors significantly increase their vulnerability to the detrimental impacts of climate change. In highlighting the vulnerabilities of low-income non-citizens and advocating a shift to a climate-just city approach, this analysis aims to guide decision-makers in Kuwait and beyond. The impact of climate change, we contend, offers an opportunity to re-open debate about the fundamental rights and concepts of citizenship, belonging, community and justice.

Contribution to the book War Diaries: Design After the Destruction of Art and Architecture.

An edited volume with Nasser Rabbat (MIT) that is an outcome from a conference held at MIT in 2019. The book is currently being revised following peer-review and is due to be published by the American University in Cairo Press in 2024.

Inspired by Gaza's inhabitants, this book builds on the positive capabilities of Gazans. It brings together environmentalists, planners, activists, and scholars from Palestine and Israel, the US, the UK, India, and elsewhere to create hopeful interventions that imagine a better place for Gazans and Palestinians. Open Gaza engages the Gaza Strip within and beyond the logics of siege and warfare, it considers how life can be improved inside the limitations imposed by the Israeli blockade, and outside the idiocy of violence and warfare.

In this thesis, I argue that the corporation is far more than a mere business enterprise and is in fact one of the most important apparatuses in the organization of our socio-spatial relations. Drawing on work in Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Geography, I consider the process of capitalization, which is central to how the corporation organizes its operations. Capitalization represents the present value of a future stream of earnings. I argue that capitalization is now central to the urbanization process and that the urban fabric has provided the corporation with a durable structure to guarantee a stream of income. Capitalized urbanization, I contend, is the building of a certain future into the urban present - also understood as the extension of time (the future) through the concentration of space (urbanization). It is therefore not only an economic proposition but one that necessitates broader socio-political and spatial control.

This paper reconceptualises the idea of reconstruction as something that happens in the aftermath of conflict. It traces how the construction of the built environment can also be part of conflict. In so doing, this essay illuminates how in Lebanon the reconstruction process was embedded within the dynamics of the Civil War and one that also exceeds it. The reconstruction was not a process that emerged in the aftermath of the conflict but fully embedded within it. Lebanon’s reconstruction involved the consolidation of social power by a narrow elite and urban violence in both periods of open conflict and peace.