Bollens, S. A. (2000), On Narrow ground (intro)
Bollens, S. A. (2000), On Narrow ground, State University of New York Press, p.415
In some case, a cities is the target or focal point fir unresolved nationalistic ethnic conflict
p.3
In other cases, the management of war-torn cities holds the key to sustainable coexistence of warring ethnic groups subsequent to cessation of over hostilities.
p.4
The physically partitioned city of Nicosia is the focal point of the United Nations- managed settlement between Greek and Turkish Cypriots who engaged in a civil war that cost more than 10,000 lives in the 1960s and 197°s.
p.4
Common to many of these cities is that ethnic identity and nationalism combine to create pressures for groups rights, autonomy or territorial separation.
p.4
Ethnically polarized= machinery of government controlled by 1 groups. City political structure & decision making challenged by ethnic group fir
-equal proportionate share of power
-group-based autonomy or independence
In most the intense cases, these cities are battlegrounds between “homeland” ethnic groups, each proclaiming the city as their own (Esman 1985)
p.5
1945-1988: 69 of 94 war recorded have been intrastate conflict
Within ethnically tense a fragmenting states, urban management of ethnic competitions has profound consequences for the national and ultimately, international level (Ashkenasi, 1988a)
p.5
Cities are fragile and vulnerable organism subject to economic stagnation and political excess violent in nature. They are focal points of urban and regional economies dependant on multi-ethnic contacts, social and cultural centers and platforms for political expression, and potential centers of grievance locus [grief] and mobilization. They provide the locus [lieu] of everyday interaction where ethnicity and identity can be created and re-created (Erikson 1993). They are suppliers of important religious and cultural symbols, zones of inter-group proximity and intimacy, and arena where the size and concentration of a subordinate population can present the most direct threat to the state; Much more than at larger geographic scales where segregation of ethnic communities is possible, the proximity of urban living means that contested cities can be locates on the fault line between culture – between modernizing societies and traditional cultures ; between individual-based and vommunity based economy and social ethic; between democracy and more authoritarian regimes; and/or between old colonial government and native population.
p.5-6
Narrow ground in “city policymaker” ethnic polarization circumscribes policy options, need management which take into account ideological and religious expression and inter-group tension
This study examine how nationalistic ethnic conflict penetrates the building of cities and explores whether urban policies and their effects may independently influence, for the better or worse, the shape and magnitude of that conflict
p.6
It test the proposition that cities are not simple mirrors of broader ethnic conflicts, but instead capable of channeling, modifying, or disrupting broader imperatives and governing ideologies
p.6
Cities not necessarily passive receptacles (Friedland & Hecth, 1996)
Urban policy and administrative strategy related spatial organization, demographic allocation, service delivery and spending, economic development
It is not evident whether a major city in the midst of nationalistic ethnic conflict will constitute a flashpoint [point d'inflammabilité] for intergroup tension or a buffer against it
p.7
In addition, the realities of urban interdepedence may make it more difficult for ethnic groups to live in their own “purified” communities insulated by myths of sameness and communal solidarity (Sensett, 1997)
One of the greatest challenges of ethnic and cultural diversity that enriches city life while at the same time working against the physical and psychological barriers, hostility, and violence that can paralyzed and impoverish [appauvrir] it
p.8
¹ Divided and polarized city
In most cities, conflicts focus on issues of services delivery (such as housing), land use compatibility, and facility sitting”
p.9
Debat about the definition of public good take place within accepted political framework GuRR, 1993, label “ethno-class” conflict, like African American, group fight for political and economic equality and cultural rights, here urban planning allocation of urban service and benefits across ethnic groups possibility of coalition building, = divided city
Urban polarization
In contrast, urban polarization occurs in case where ethnic and nationalist claims combine and impinge [empieter sur] significantly and consistently on distributional at the municipal level (Boal é Douglas, 1982; Benvenisti 1986)
p.10
Polarized cities host “alternative and directly opposing culture that are “contestable” (Agnew, Mercer & Sopher 1984); “Ethnonational” conflict = A group seeks autonomy or separation
Strong minority in urban pop who reject urban institution (Douglas & Boal, 1982; Rominn & Weingrop 1991)
“While doctrines of collectives rights, pluralism, or autonomy are invoked by those on the outside, the politically dominant in-group views resistance by a historically subordinated out-group as an obstacle to “natural” processes of city building and assimilation (Gurr 1993, Horowitz, 1985)
p.16
¹ divieded city, site of enduring and consistent interethnic violence, but in polarized city violence “rational” as only way to change intractable institutions and circumstances (Sick 1995)
Political science model of conflict management = political arrangement and mechanism at level of national-state de-emphasizing city governance
Smaller scale arrangement tool of larger macropolitical objectives , top-down, ant nationa and international level
“The city is assume to reflect at a concrete level the playing out of the broader imbalance of power”
p.11
O’Leary & McGarry (1995) outline two types of methods- those that would eliminate ethnic differences and those that would manage such differences
Eliminate = mass population transfet, partition secession and integration or assimilation
“City administrations manipulate demographic proportion and spatially fragment on antagonistic ethnic group in order to achieve the same political objectives as forces relocations
p.12
Political partition of urban space result national level agreement resulting territorial separation but create problem specific to urban scale
Managing ethnic ¹ hegemonic control, third party intervention, cantanization, federalization and consociation , power sharing
Hegemonic control cost of democracy
3 party : arbiter must be accepted by contending ethnic groups “even well intended policies by third party can be seen as reinforcing these inequalities in roots cause of urban disparities are not addressed”
p.12
Cantonalization and federalization devolution to homogenous ethnonational territories; Urban scale community / neighborhood-based group metropolitan government ans subordinate municipal one
Consociation / power sharing conflict regulation practice made by political leader, structure of proportional representation, veto goal to overcome and diffuse societal fragmentation
Study only at national scale,
Study relative condition of deprivation, ethnic group’s political organization, leadership S 1° cause of community protest direct salience to urban setting
-Protest and resistance: sense of injustice shared across out-group members
-Resistance f() leadership , organization network
“Because cities may ne either platform or palliative for community protest, the intensity of urban opposition may be different than, and be able to affect, the quality of national-level opposition
p.13
Urban planning: “ a major limitation of this literature is that much of planning prescription and theory has been dependent upon there been legitimate source of power and control
(Freidmann, 1087)
p.14
Planning assume a stable state
“In contrast , in planning in ethnically polarized cities must act within condition of instability and uncertaintly that call into question the very basis of it additional practice
p.14
Urban Planning focus on technical aspect of land use and development and not value and social justice
(Thomas 1994; Thomas & Krishnarayan 1994)
Benevenisti (1986a) states that planning’s use of pragmatic, process-oriented approaches aimed at urban symptoms, not root causes, legitimizes the status quo and institutionalizes the dual, unequal conditions common to urban polarization
p.14
Two model of urban policu Freidmann (1987)
-Social learning model: professional learn from action and practice in ethnically polarized environment be forefront on grassroots effort to accommodate antagonistic ethnicities within the urban milieu
-“Social mobilizaton or empowermant model of a planning seek emancipation of working people , woman and oppressed ethnic groups (Freidmann, 1987, 1992)
Geographic analyse spatial and territorial aspect and dynamic such context
Sack (1981) def territoriality p.5
“The attempt to affect, influence, or control actions and interaction (of people, things and relationships) by asserting and attempting to enforce control over a specific geographical area”
Dominant group in contested city seek contain antagonistic group’s territorial expression (yiftachel 1995)
= intentional extension of dominant group and subordinate group face restriction of their extension avoid constitution of regional-based counter-culture which may challenge state
“Territorial policies can displace attention away from the roots causes of social conflict to conflict among territorial spaces themselves” (Sack, 1986) p;15
In the urban setting, this means that international issue of sovereignty and autonomy become reducible to issue over neighborhoods and suburban growth
p.15
Dominant group to control antagonistic pop = penetration it geographically Þ physical presence and fragmented sense of community of opposite group
Spatial competition Þ antagonistic groups closer Þ condition for conflict
Administrative control over land ¹people
“In other case, achievement of territorial control at one geographic scale (for instance that t-of the city) may expose the dominating groups to demographic and physical threats at the next broader geographical scale (for instance, the urban or metropolitan region). Thus, territoriality may engender further efforts at territorial control in a self-fulfilling cycle (Sack 1986)
p.18
Harvay (1973) Urban space and social justice
D Smith 1994 socially justice geography
Barry 1989 spatial distributive justice to its institutional basis
Link geographical strategies & outcomes to ideology which guides institutional procedure
Political goal Þ territorial policiesÞ territorial outcome Þ political goal
-Social psycholology of urban intergroup conflict
“Ethnic conflict of the type found in polarized cities are only marginally over material interests, but rather touch deeply on human needs for security, identity and recognitions for acces to political institutions and economic participation (R. Cohen 1978; Burton, 1990; Kelman 90; Azar 91)
p.16
The threatened loss of group identity and security amidst conditions of urban conflict –due in particular to urban territorial changes – can be a prime motivation or of antagonsim and unrest
p.17
needs-bassed approach to conflict resolution
Social ecology (personal cheracterisatics) ¹ physical ecology (environmental factor Þ physical secu and militarization)
Social eco facilitate inter-group contact, assumes that insularity and prejudice are at the rootes of intergroup conflict
“Cities exist between ideological and historical bases of ethnic conflict and the interpersonal or inter-group dynamics or ethnic relations
p.19
Urban system= intergroup proximity , social interaction, eco interdependency S bend or distort relationship between ideological dispute and ethnic conflict
“Rather than a physically container which passively reflect larger societal processes, a city is an active social and political agent capable of moving a society toward either disruptive unrest or ethnic accommodation
Importance of political leader in ethnic conflict (Pesic 1996)
Urban policy understandable to public at large and tangible on-the-ground strategies