The Urban Refugee

‘This book redefines the urban as a phenomenon of refugeehood, a circumstance of people simultaneously in and out of place, where logic or logistic of control coalesces with the unrestraint experiential quality of the urban. Batuman and Kilinc have brought together contributors committed to take seriously the agency and subjectivity of refugees in the co-production of urban space and in claiming the rights to the city. Together, they engage significant research materials with critical concepts in urban studies that cut across the North-South divide. They have made us aware that the global urban present and future is unthinkable without recognizing the phenomena of refugeehood that mediate the consequences of built environments and complex strategies of place-making.’ -- Abidin Kusno, York University, Canada ‘This superbly illustrated collection narrates rich stories that transport us across Somali malls, Parisian homes, Saida’s shelters, Denizli’s informal areas, Houston’s community centres, Beirut’s playgrounds, and Izmir’s old hotel district. With great insight, authors show how the new urban condition should be theorized not solely through the violent structures of the neoliberalism-migration nexus, but also through centring the spatial agency of urban refugees who are actively and resourcefully labouring and inhabiting cities.’  -- Mona Harb, American University of Beirut, Lebanon