[Bilimsel Haber] Special Issue: ‘dis-placed’: Thematic volume planned for June 2021 (Proposal submission deadline: 30 July 2019), International Journal of Islamic Architecture

[Gonul Pultar]

Special Issue: ‘dis-placed’: Thematic volume planned for June 2021 
(Proposal submission deadline: 30 July 2019) 
<https://networks.h-net.org/user/login?destination=node/4122532>

by Kivanc Kilinc


This special issue of the /International Journal of Islamic Architecture 
/focuses on the spatial forms and urban consequences of forced 
migration. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for 
Refugees, the number of displaced persons has reached 70 million, the 
highest it has been since the end of World War II. The popular term 
‘refugee crisis’ itself conceives of the refugee as a problem: an 
objectified person that is denied active agency and subjected to 
incarceration in various types of spaces of exception. In addition to 
such spaces (ranging from those of incarceration to refugee camps), the 
‘free’ existence of the refugee in the contemporary metropolis is marked 
by precarity, a quality that has become a characteristic feature of the 
neoliberal urban milieu.

It is not only the status, but also the spaces and movements of the 
refugee that exhibit precarity. The spatiality of forced migration 
presents a vast field of inquiry as it is possible to identify various 
spatial forms of refugee experience. The first of these comprises the 
spaces of mobility: the movement of migrants across borders occurs 
through particular routes displaying particular forms of spatiality. The 
‘Balkan Route’ and the ‘migrant caravans’ of Central America not only 
transgress national borders but also produce new territorialities. The 
second spatial form is that of state-controlled incarceration: asylum 
centres, detention centres, deportation centres, transit camps, prisons, 
ghettos, etc. The biopolitics of nationless bodies has a spatial 
character which is based on organized immobility. The third spatial form 
is the refugee camp, which simultaneously reflects practices of refugee 
governance, as well as the refugees’ agency in producing the camp as 
social space. These nomadic spaces curiously have much in common with 
utopian urbanisms of post-war architectural avant-garde. Thus, even in 
their precarious conditions they have inspired artists and architects to 
imagine alternate spatialities. It is also worth considering the 
non-urban character of camps; the ‘host’ states are often unwilling to 
integrate refugees into their urban networks and prefer to locate them 
in undeveloped border areas. Thus, the refugee camps present socially as 
well as physically marginal conditions. Here, it should also be noted 
that states engage in open or covert cooperation in governing refugee 
mobility, for instance in the striking example of the so-called ‘PNG 
solution’ between Australia and Papua New Guinea where the former has 
built detention facilities within the latter’s territory. The fourth 
spatial form is the city, or rather the new urban condition under the 
multi-dimensional effects of forced migration. Indeed, the displaced 
subjectivity of urban refugees blending in as a hidden population should 
be considered as the symptom of the segregation, discrimination, and 
other forms of inequality inherent in the contemporary metropolis.

It is also crucial to consider the historical circumstances that 
triggered the current wave of forced migration. The recent episodes of 
war and destruction are closely related to the crisis of neoliberalism, 
the effects of which include the destruction of public space, 
gentrification, the emergence of gated communities, and increases in 
inequality in the urban sphere. These predicaments of neoliberalization 
led to the global wave of mass protests in 2011–2013. These protests 
were responses to the impoverishment of life and took the form of Occupy 
movements in the Global North and were called the ‘Arab Spring’ by 
observers of dynamics in the Middle East and North Africa. In broad 
terms, these were globally connected and mutually inspired revolts 
against commodification and authoritarianism. There is a curious link 
between the figure of the refugee and the urban focus of these earlier 
protests. The refugee represents a generalized condition of the urban 
politics that marked the protests. The refugee as nomad seeks and 
produces new spatialities – ambiguous architectures of precarity – and 
in this respect s/he opens room for considering alternative urban 
experiences, possibilities of reimagining the city as commons.

Therefore, the refugee does indeed represent a crisis. S/he 
problematizes the status quo within and across borders established on 
the primacy of the nation-state and its regimes of governance, including 
the very definition of citizenship. Within this framework, the knowledge 
of space produced within disciplines such as geography, urban planning, 
and architecture is deployed to limit the movements of forced migrants 
across and within national borders. In response, critical scholarship 
also scrutinizes the sites, practices, and processes of refugee 
governance. Terms such as ‘hospitality,’ ‘alien,’ ‘host,’ ‘stranger,’ 
and ‘destination’ assume new meanings as indexes of the precarious 
status of the refugee.

The theme of this special issue is particularly in tune with the general 
scope of IJIA in two respects. The first relates to the geographies of 
refugee mobility and its major overlap with the transnational geography 
of Islam across the globe. In most cases, the recent refugee groups 
arriving in Europe (as well as the United States) are Muslim (or 
labelled so) and are met with Islamophobic hostility. The second 
concerns attention to design and the objective to develop dialogue 
between practitioners and scholars. The ethical dimension of forced 
migration has led practitioners to develop proposals as alternatives to 
refugee camps and the interaction between these works and the critical 
scholarship on forced migration is vital for further advance of both.

This special issue invites papers that address the spatiality of the 
refugee. The theme is identified as ‘dis-placed’ to underline the 
dialectics of refugee existence. The refugee is, by definition, 
/displaced/; but s/he is also /placed /in two senses. S/he finds a place 
to settle but is also subject to the resettlement project of power. 
Within this framework, topics and related issues that may be addressed 
include, but are not limited to, the following:

*1. Social and cultural aspects*

criminal justice and migration control

encounters with institutional and everyday xenophobia (and Islamophobia)

the use of art in the rehabilitation of refugee communities

ethnicity, religion, and the politics of ‘integration’

*2. Spatial practices*

Continuities/ ruptures of everyday practices between locations of 
departure and arrival

spatial meanings/ makings of ‘safety’/ ‘privacy’/ ‘normalcy’

the everyday spatial practices of urban refugees

mapping extended and recurrent displacement (methodologies ranging from 
cartography to digital humanities)

spatial narratives of refugee literature and art

*3. Urbanism*

crimes against and criminalization of refugees in urban space

border as territory: (un)integration of refugee camps to urban networks

internal displacement (IDPs)

spatial economies of destitution and aid

*4. Design and construction*

mobile architectures/ temporary dwellings

resilience in/of refugee camps

precarious spaces of refugee subjectivity

Articles offering historical and theoretical analysis (DiT papers) 
should be between 6000 and 8000 words, and those on design and practice 
(DiP papers) between 3000 and 4000 words. Practitioners are welcome to 
contribute insofar as they address the critical framework of the 
journal. Urbanists, art historians, anthropologists, geographers, 
political scientists, sociologists, and historians are also welcome. 
Please send a title and a 400-word abstract to the guest editor, Bülent 
Batuman, Bilkent University (batuman at bilkent.edu.tr 
<mailto:batuman at bilkent.edu.tr>), by 30 July 2019. Authors of accepted 
proposals will be contacted soon thereafter and will be requested to 
submit full papers by 31 January 2020. All papers will be subject to 
blind peer review. For author instructions, please consult: 
_www.intellectbooks.com/ijia <http://www.intellectbooks.com/ijia>_

Kivanc Kilinc, PhD, Managing Editor, IJIA



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