Precarious Urbanism: Displacement, Belonging and the Reconstruction of Somali Cities [Paperback]

This book explores relationships between war, displacement and city-making. Focusing on people seeking refuge in Somali cities after being forced to migrate by violence, environmental shocks or economic pressures, it highlights how these populations are actively transforming urban space.

Using first-hand testimonies and participatory photography by urban in-migrants, the book documents and analyses the micropolitics of urban camp management, evictions and gentrification, and the networked labour of displaced populations that underpins growing urban economies. Central throughout is a critical analysis of how the discursive figure of the internally displaced person is co-produced by various actors. The book argues that this label exerts significant power in structuring socio-economic inequalities and the politics of group belonging within different Somali cities connected through protracted histories of conflict-related migration.

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Jutta Bakonyi is Professor in Development and Conflict at Durham University.

Peter Chonka is Lecturer in Global Digital Cultures at Kings College London.

Based on innovative fieldwork combining narrative interviews and photovoice to capture the views of people who were displaced by violence, environmental shocks or economics pressures in Somalia.This highly original book interweaves photos and gut-wrenching narratives from city newcomers to paint an astonishingly rich picture of the nexus between displacement and urbanization in Somalia. Jethro Norman, Danish Institute of International Studies A major contribution to theoretical debates at the intersection of urbanism, mobility and violence using an incredibly rich and wonderfully historicised analysis of the fast-changing Somali context. Michael Collyer, University of Sussex

This book is for everyone working on urban change and urbanization. I have followed the challenging research on which this book is based with great interest from early on and lC+