Spatial entanglements of (in)security and violence: exploring the politics of Syria's urban reconstruction under Asad

Abstract

An examination of the politics of reconstruction under Asad sheds light on how the Syrian regime's efforts to establish a new sociopolitical order were deeply intertwined with the spatialisation of (in)security and the (in)securitisation of urban spaces. Drawing on approaches from the emerging 'Beirut School' of Critical Security Studies (CSS) that foreground the role of violence and its impact on lived experiences of (in)security, demonstrates: (i) how the regime's use of reconstruction to reinforce loyalty and political survival through spatial means amounted to a form of urbicide under the guise of security, showing how necropolitical and biopolitical mechanisms replicate colonial techniques; and (ii) how Syrians, forced to navigate the violence and insecurity bred by these reconstruction efforts, attempted to preserve the memory and identities of 'lost' space, highlighting the fragility of (in)security assemblages and the potential emergence of counter-sites for alternative political subjectivities.