Envisaging L'Aquila
edited by Alessandro Coppola

From Palestine to Mexico: Urban borders and splintering urban space

AAG 2013, Los Angeles.
April 2013.

Call for papers
From Palestine to Mexico
Urban borders and splintering urban space

The US/Mexico border and Palestine/Israel are often pointed to as emblematic sites of a broader global tendency towards the simultaneous
fortification of borders and splintering and militarisation of urban space. While the two cases are often cited in tandem as analytical
examples, or raised as possible targets for academic and political collaboration, what is often lacking is a detailed understanding of
historical and structural similarities which connect the fortification and militarisation of urban space in these two contexts, as well as
the strategies of resistance developed in them. This panel invites papers that reflect on similarities and connections between these two
militarised and securitised spaces, as well as analytical papers that explore the specificities of each space.

We welcome papers addressing a wide range of different topics that critically analyse the production of these spaces, their reproduction,
and their connection. Examples of possible topics include the following, but we also welcome papers on related topics not included
in this list:

1. Building the city at the intersection of colonial processes/geopolitical interests/planning regulations.
2. Elite geographies behind the borders. Fortification of urban space around lines of race/class. Reproduction of militarised border
landscapes in elite spaces.
3. Different regimes of mobility and different access to space along lines of nationality/class/legal status (multi-layered terrain of
roads, how different identities affect mobilities).
4. The landscape of the imaginary: urban spaces beyond the borders.
5. Popular resistance and the contestation of boundaries.

Please send abstracts of 200 words to giglioli@berkeley.edu, noura.alkhalili@keg.lu.se or linda_quiquivix@brown.edu by October
10th 2012

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