TY - JOUR
T1 - Precarious spaces and violent site effects
T2 - Experiences from Hargeisa’s urban margins
AU - Stuvoy, Kirsti
AU - Bakonyi, Jutta
AU - Chonka, Peter
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [ES/R002355/1]. We would like to thank Abdirahman Edle, Ahmed Abdulahi Dualeh, Omar Dirie and an unnamed research assistant who either conducted or helped us to conduct the interviews and photovoice sessions in Hargeisa. We are also grateful to all of the research participants for giving their time to share experiences and insights with us.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2021/5/11
Y1 - 2021/5/11
N2 - This paper addresses precarity from a spatial perspective. It draws attention to how power becomes inscribed in urban space and shapes particular spatial arrangements connected with socio-economic vulnerabilities. This is empirically illustrated with a case study of Hargeisa, a city historically marked by the violence of the Somali civil war. Our analysis draws on interviews and participant photography, to fore-ground the ‘everyday’ experiences of residents living in the city’s marginal settlements. We point to the operations of power that produce political, economic and social deprivation but also agentic options for these residents who experience, cope with, struggle with and work against their marginalisation. Interconnecting precarity with geographies of violence, we elaborate the concept of ‘violent site effects’ as a means to explain how power inscribed in spatial arrangements can cause harm to people. We emphasise violence as built into structures and as part of social orders that produce precarity. This, we argue, provides a basis on which to reflect on the dynamic ways in which inequality, insecurity and thus, vulnerabilities, are produced and reproduced in the processes of urban reconstruction.
AB - This paper addresses precarity from a spatial perspective. It draws attention to how power becomes inscribed in urban space and shapes particular spatial arrangements connected with socio-economic vulnerabilities. This is empirically illustrated with a case study of Hargeisa, a city historically marked by the violence of the Somali civil war. Our analysis draws on interviews and participant photography, to fore-ground the ‘everyday’ experiences of residents living in the city’s marginal settlements. We point to the operations of power that produce political, economic and social deprivation but also agentic options for these residents who experience, cope with, struggle with and work against their marginalisation. Interconnecting precarity with geographies of violence, we elaborate the concept of ‘violent site effects’ as a means to explain how power inscribed in spatial arrangements can cause harm to people. We emphasise violence as built into structures and as part of social orders that produce precarity. This, we argue, provides a basis on which to reflect on the dynamic ways in which inequality, insecurity and thus, vulnerabilities, are produced and reproduced in the processes of urban reconstruction.
KW - Precarity
KW - space
KW - violence
KW - urbanisation
KW - Somaliland
KW - Somalia
KW - displacement
KW - Political Economy
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85106144637&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/14678802.2021.1920230
DO - 10.1080/14678802.2021.1920230
M3 - Article
SN - 1467-8802
VL - 21
SP - 153
EP - 176
JO - Conflict, Security & Development
JF - Conflict, Security & Development
IS - 2
ER -