Postwar cities, where war is over yet the socio-political ordering of society remains contested, tend to be one of the most entrenched and volatile flashpoints in war-to-peace transitions.1 More often than not it is in postwar cities where the starkest continuities of war in peace are located and where the primary fault lines of wider conflicts are found (Bollens 2018; Pullan and Baillie 2013).2 Neighbours in postwar cities are often âintimate enemiesâ with little interaction as non-contact is encouraged and enforced while mixing is discouraged and punished (Bollens 1999, 8). City institutions in turn are paralysed or divided, socio-political existence rendered in zero-sum âus and themâ terms, and ethnonational3 belonging key for accessing jobs and services (Gusic 2015; Moore 2013). Streets of postwar cities also tend to be frequent sites of violence whereas cityscapes are securitised and carved up into âoursâ and âtheirsâ (Björkdahl and Gusic 2013; Calame and Charlesworth 2009). Thus rather than moving from war to peace, postwar cities tend to be stuck in postwar status quosâwhere war might be over yet the socio-political ordering of society remains contested.
Postwar cities thereby epitomise the continuities rather than discontinuities of war in peace, which has consequences in, for, and beyond these cities. Continuities of war in peace force people in postwar cities into divided and politicised lives where they are exposed to violence, have rights denied, and are unable to access all city parts (Gusic 2015; Moore 2013; Murtagh and Shirlow 2006). Postwar cities themselves are not spared either as continuities of war in peace paralyse and make them dysfunctional, undermine citywide reintegration efforts, and make contestation their modus operandi (Björkdahl and Strömbom 2015; Bollens 2012). Postwar cities also impact their wider socio-political contexts as continuities of war in peace often make them Gordian knots of peace processes, entrenched frontiers of wider conflicts, and tinderboxes of violence (Beall et al. 2013; Esser 2004; Sampaio 2016). This is evident also in the postwar cities engaged in this book. Belfast is both the major location and disproportionately affected target of postwar violence between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland (Gaffikin and Morrissey 2011); the local north-south division of Mitrovica is the central frontier in the Albanian-Serb conflict over Kosovo (Gusic 2019); and the deadlock in Mostar damages relations between Bosniaks and Croats across Bosnia-Herzegovina (Moore 2013).
1.1 The Research Problem
The continuities of war in peace found in postwar cities thus have alarming consequences. Yet they also form this bookâs principal research problem. âThe cityâ is namely often theorised and historically proven to have great potential to transcend societal divides, bridge communities, and foster coexistence (Brenner 2014; Sassen 2013; Sennett 2008).4 Postwar cities, however, fulfil little to none of this potential. Instead of bringing people together and spearheading wider war-to-peace transitionsâas they have the potential to doâpostwar cities reinforce and cement continuities of war in peace in as well as beyond themselves (Pullan and Baillie 2013). This unfulfilled potential constitutes my principal research problem as I ask: Why are the continuities of war in peace reinforced rather than transcended in the postwar city?
To engage this principal problem, I will split it into three foci. I will consequently theorise the postwar city to enable its study, explore what about the postwar city makes it reinforce its continuities of war in peace, as well as explore the continuities of war in peace found in Belfast, Mitrovica, and Mostar.5 These foci boil down to the following research questions:
- 1.What constitutes the postwar city?
- 2.What accounts for the postwar city reinforcing rather than transcending its continuities of war in peace?
- 3.How are the continuities from war to peace reinforcedâand possibly transcendedâin Belfast, Mitrovica, and Mostar?
Peace research has in recent years studied postwar settings extensively (Bara 2017; Jabri 2007; Mac Ginty 2006; Richmond 2016; Wallensteen 2015). This growing attention has resulted in more nuanced understandings of war-to-peace transitions that include previously excluded aspects and resonate more clearly with everyday experiences of those affected (Pouligny 2006; Richmond and Mac Ginty 2015; Sylvester 2013). Yet peace research has generally not engaged with and thereby expanded our knowledge on postwar cities. While postwar cities hardly are categorically excluded, the few studies that do explore them are usually studies in rather than of postwar cities (e.g. Bieber 2005; Moore 2013; Pickering 2007). When postwar cities figure in peace research, they are thus levels of analysis for general foci rather than research objects with distinct postwar problems (cf. Björkdahl and Strömbom 2015 with Bollens 2012).
This is hardly the problem in urban studies where cities are the research object (Brenner 2014). Urban studies have also devoted more attention to postwar cities than peace research has, meaning that most studies of postwar cities come either from urban studies or closely related fields (e.g. Bollens 2012; Calame and Charlesworth 2009; Pullan and Baillie 2013).6 The problem, however, is that this research tends to not take on-board recent insights on postwar settings found within peace research. The result is that crucial advances such as the contentedness and non-linearity of war-to-peace transitions or the necessity to include everyday experience usually are not fully and explicitly appreciated in urban studies (cf. Björkdahl and Strömbom 2015 with Bollens 2018; Calame and Charlesworth 2009).7 This dual problemâwhere peace research neglects the city as a research object while urban studi...