Urban Morphology & Violence | Figure for Article 1
Urban Morphology & Violence
The present issue seeks to better apprehend the nature of this new era of digital disinformation and how it differs from prior eras marked by the dissemination of more traditional propaganda (notably the Cold War) or by the spread of American (or liberal) soft power through mass media and consumption. In so doing the issue seeks to address a series of questions such as: has traditional propaganda consisting in over-selling a model or ideology by means of manipulation and mass media been replaced by the generalisation of disinformation in the post-truth era characterized by systematic epistemic deconstruction and the outright discreditation of any truth claims? What is the role of states (as opposed to other actors) in this process and what tools and operational mechanisms are they mobilizing to pursue their global (dis-)information campaigns? What is the impact of the generalisation of alternative facts and disinformation campaigns on the international order? Who is to win and lose from it? What can be done, notably at the international level and the UN, to counter the noxious effects of global disinformation campaigns and to recreate trust in the global information order?
We currently face a baffling paradox. While since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 a seemingly inexorable process of globalisation has been foreshadowing a peaceful and frontierless world, the number of walls across the world has been rising at a steady pace. Liberal and open societies buttressed by trade, international law and technological progress were supposed to implacably contribute to the erosion of frontiers and walls between nations. However, in a context of surging populist discourses, securitarian anxieties and identitarian politics as well as concomitant flows of migration alimented by climate change, conflict and poverty, nations have recently started to barricade themselves behind new walls.
The essays in this volume are the product of a new ‘research practicum‘ course in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the Graduate Institute in Geneva. They build on the debates on ‘Urban Morphology and violence’ to reflect on the associations between cities – their political orders and disorders – and outcomes ranging from occupation and resistance to marginalisation and containment. These texts foreshadow the possibility of centring – and challenging – the urban in our understanding of contemporary conflict, violence and peace. They are a first step in opening up a research agenda for a more textured analysis of spatial, geographical and temporal dynamics within the city in relation to violence, and, therefore, the mobilisation of spatial, temporal and visual modes of analysis. The promise is to make visible the varied roles of urban morphologies – adding to the debate on cities in and as sites of conflict.
