Neighborhoods in Flux: Colonial Impacts and Decolonial Prospects in and beyond Eurasia

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel examines the concept and practice of neighborhoods against the backdrop of colonialism and decolonization, emphasizing the role of neighborhoods in cultural, political, and social transformations. By integrating philosophical inquiry with historical analysis, it emphasizes neighborhoods as key to understanding space as both shaped by and shaping societal structures. The discussion begins with an examination of Samarkand through a Sufi lens, exploring how neighborhoods embody identity, memory, and change, particularly in post-Soviet contexts, highlighting the importance of spatial negotiation and community building against imperial backgrounds. The conversation then moves to early 20th-century Poland, under Russian rule, analyzing suburban spaces as arenas of contestation and control. This study reveals the interdependencies between spatial arrangements and socio-political identities, highlighting how infrastructure and (sub)urban planning strategies were both instruments of control and focal points of resistance. Lastly, the third presentation shifts to a Eurasian neighborhood outside of Eurasia, namely in nineteenth-century Cairo, offering a historical perspective on the transnational flows of people, papers, and capital that shaped a diasporic neighborhood landscape. These case studies collectively shed light on the processes of neighborhood creation and redefinition, challenging conventional understandings of colonial and decolonial impacts on spatial arrangements and urging a deeper consideration of communal spaces. This exploration contributes to a wider dialogue on space production, offering insights into the intersections of history, philosophy, and politics in shaping human environments across different geographical and historical landscapes, thereby offering new perspectives on liberation, spatial dynamics, and community engagement in and beyond Eurasia.

Sub Unit

• Geography, Urban Studies, Built Environments

Chair

• Hubertus F. Jahn, U of Cambridge (UK)

Papers

• Neighborhood Spaces of Samarkand: Between Past and Present - Nargis Nurulla-Khoja, Silk Road International U (Uzbekistan)

• Between Flux of Space and Stillness of Place: Urban Periphery in Early Twentieth Century Russian Poland - Antoni Porayski-Pomsta, U of Cambridge (UK)

• Spaces in Motion: Central Asian Neighborhood in Nineteenth-Century Cairo - Malika Zehni, U of London (UK)

Discussant

• Claire Nadine Roosien, Yale U