Bounding cities as a means of managing conflict: Sarajevo, Beirut and Jerusalem

Abstract

This article investigates state and international manipulation of political ethnic geographies in politically contested cities and examines the consequences of such territorial projects for longer-term peacebuilding. I explore Sarajevo, Beirut and Jerusalem. In each case, there has been the constricting, or bounding, of urban territory in pursuit of inter-group stability and violence reduction. Bounding of urban space takes several forms – municipal boundary drawing, sectarian power-sharing and physical wall building – with each accepting ethno-national group differences and reinforcing them geographically. These actions, whether undertaken by international negotiators, through local elite agreements, or through unilateral fiat, are consequential in terms of urban peacebuilding. Sarajevo ethnic circumscription creates a new externalised sectarian urban node and territorial hardening of competing identity groups. The Beirut urban area is debilitated by the loss of place-based political voice for a demographically ascending sectarian group. Manipulation of Jerusalem's political geography creates Palestinian displacement, material disadvantage and political disillusionment. In each case, ethnic identity is concretised as a means of managing conflict, leaving the urban area handicapped as a place of pluralism and interaction. Bounding cities as a means of managing conflict constrains the potential for ethnic peace.