Urban Violence

Work Plan for 2014-15

 

Keywords:

Collective Violence, Peace Building, Cities, Urbanization, Social Infrastructure, Housing, Informal Political Relations, Marginality, Conflicts

Group Coordinator:

Shylashri Shankar

Members:

Joanna Wheeler, Laurence Piper, Claire Benit Gbaffou, Andrew Charman, Jackson Mugume, Nayana Godamunne

Context

The theme focuses on the conditions under which groups, citizens and the state conflict and/or collaborate on every day issues of infrastructure, housing, displacement, schooling, hospitals and clinics in expanding cities. It explores the connection between urban violence, economic and social marginalisation, and informal politics in cities of the South A key objective will be to demonstrate the importance of informal political relations to various, often interlinked, forms of urban peace building.

Focus Questions

The questions tackled by the group will initially be focused on analysing the conditions under which collective violence is used as a way of imposing a specific local order.

(i) Symposium on Collective Violence and Local Order (Hyderabad, Cape Town, Rio)
The authors of the chapters will focus on questions related to the following:

  • Who drives this collective violence? Who defines the order (norms, territories, behaviour, insider/outsider)
  • Against whom? Resistance, resources
  • What other ways (non-violent) have been attempted and failed/or ceased to work?
  • What triggers the eruption of violence, where and why?
  • What are the outcomes? Spatial/normative/social/political.

Outputs

  1. A symposium in a journal.
    • Timeline: Abstracts are due from the authors by July 31, 2014, and the first draft of the paper is due by December 15, 2014.
  2. Proposal building on Urban Peace Building: We will begin the process of creating a proposal on how groups, citizens and the state conflict and collaborate on every day issues of infrastructure, displacement, resettlement, housing, schooling, hospitals and clinics in expanding cities
    • Output: Proposal to be created and discussed in the next CORD meeting.
    • Funding possibilities: UN Habitat Safer Cities