Rethinking Humanitarian Stabilization Action in “and Fragile Cities”

Muggah, Robert; Jütersonke, Oliver

doi:10.59962/9780774822343-019

Cited by 3 publications

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“…UN-Habitat (2007) had earlier released a report defining urban vulnerability and resilience. However, it is in 2012 when the ‘fragile cities’ agenda takes clearer shape, notably around the work of Robert Muggah both through the Igarapé Institute in Brazil (Muggah and Savage, 2012) and in collaboration with the UN University Centre for Policy Research (De Boer, Muggah, and Patel, 2016). Muggah and the scholars gravitating around the fragile cities index have presented different definitions of the concept, all of which reflect different facets of the modernistic failed states agenda.…”

Section: From Failed States To Fragile Cities: Inquiring Into the Aft...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At the same time, colour-coding fragile cities are also understood as mosaics and are expected to contain more than one colour (Norton, 2003: 103), with some enclaves of feral cities displaying ‘green conditions’ (Norton, 2003: 103). As such, insecurity in ‘fragile cities’ is relative, with a ‘Manichean landscape of ‘safe’ gated communities and ‘violent’ slums’ (Muggah and Savage, 2012).…”

Section: Fragment (2): Visualisation Mapping and Colour-codingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, in this article, we argue that a different story emerges if we trace the afterlives of the failed states agenda through the fragile cities agenda, focusing particularly on how fragments of the various iterations of the agenda are rearticulated. The fragile cities agenda, most clearly articulated by Robert Muggah (along with affiliates from Igarapé Institute in Brazil), is clear about the willingness to expand the remit of the failed states agenda beyond the exclusive domain of states (Muggah and Savage, 2012), as such projecting the agenda onto a local scale and extending interventionary practices to areas previously inaccessible to interventions (Miklos and Paoliello, 2017: 556; Moulin Aguiar and Tabak, 2015). By analysing the afterlives of modern notions of state failure through the fragile cities agenda, we are able to provide insight into contemporary genealogies of security and development by underlining the persistence of colonial forms.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The afterlives of state failure: echoes and aftermaths of colonialism

Lemay-Hébert,

Jerrems

2023

European Journal of International Relations

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This article offers a new perspective on the failed states agenda, and the reconfiguration of colonial discourse buttressing it, by theorising its afterlives. The concept of afterlives has mostly been discussed as a metaphor or in passing in the IR literature. Drawing from the post- and decolonial literature, we propose to define the concept simultaneously as echoes and aftermaths of the past. This conceptualisation of afterlives aims to contribute to the study of the persistence of colonial forms beyond notions of continuity and rupture. We develop the concept of afterlives through a discussion of the failed states agenda and its iterations. We discuss four specific iterations of the agenda: the genesis of the agenda in the decolonisation period; the consolidation of the agenda during the early 1990s; the crisis of the agenda and the rise of the resilience discussion; and finally the rise of the fragile city agenda as one of the afterlives of the failed states agenda. To illustrate our argument, we discuss two specific ‘fragments’ through which we can effectively grasp the echoes and aftermaths of coloniality: the pathologisation of fragile states and cities, operated through various twin figures (civilised/barbaric; strong/dysfunctional; resilient/vulnerable) and their practical repercussions; and the visualisation, mapping and colour-coding of fragile states and cities, exemplifying the durability and contradictions of the failed states agenda.

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Section: From Failed States To Fragile Cities: Inquiring Into the Aft...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Fragment (2): Visualisation Mapping and Colour-codingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The afterlives of state failure: echoes and aftermaths of colonialism

Lemay-Hébert,

Jerrems

2023

European Journal of International Relations

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Deconstructing the fragile city: exploring insecurity, violence and resilience

Muggah¹

2014

Environment and Urbanization

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An emerging social category -the fragile city -can be described as a discrete metropolitan unit whose governance arrangements exhibit a declining ability and/or willingness to deliver on the social contract. Fragility is thus no longer ascribed by decision makers and analysts exclusively to nation-states and federal institutions. Rather, fragile cities are being reconceived as the primary sites of tomorrow's warfare and development. Yet, surprisingly little is known about them. When do cities "tip" into fragility? How is fragility distributed within and between neighbourhoods? What allows some cities to cope, adapt and rebound from external and internal stresses? This article, drawing from emerging theoretical and policy literatures, finds that urban fragility is neither inevitable nor irreversible. To the contrary: it is the very resilience of cities, their neighbourhoods and institutions that is often overlooked in efforts to promote stability and development. Fragile cities themselves are constituted of sources of local resistance and agency that, in some cases, can be reinforced and from which positive lessons can be learned.

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To engage or not to engage Haiti’s urban armed groups? Safe access in disaster-stricken and conflict-affected cities

Schuberth¹

2017

Environment and Urbanization

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International agencies responding to humanitarian crises in cities are increasingly faced with urban armed groups controlling neighbourhoods where the most vulnerable sections of society are located. In such settings, it is not clear how to deliver aid to those who need it the most without further strengthening predatory armed actors. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in Haiti, this article contributes to the emerging debate on the engagement of non-state armed groups in the context of disaster-stricken and conflict-affected cities, by presenting new empirical evidence on how humanitarian and development actors negotiate safe access in Port-au-Prince's gang-ruled neighbourhoods in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake. While some major development agencies have struggled to minimize the unintended-yet potentially harmful-consequences of their activities for beneficiaries, the approach of the Brazilian NGO Viva Rio offers important lessons for more effective humanitarian response to urban crises in comparable contexts.

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Rethinking Humanitarian Stabilization Action in “and Fragile Cities”

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

The afterlives of state failure: echoes and aftermaths of colonialism

The afterlives of state failure: echoes and aftermaths of colonialism

Deconstructing the fragile city: exploring insecurity, violence and resilience

To engage or not to engage Haiti’s urban armed groups? Safe access in disaster-stricken and conflict-affected cities

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