Heritage, modernity and the Muhajirin in Amman: decolonising urban knowledge in Ras-Al-Ein

Abstract

ABSTRACT Authoritative urban knowledge (AUK) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is a neocolonial construct firmly rooted in oriental imaginaries and colonial/modern urbanism. It informs the managerial epistemology of neoliberal ‘development’ projects, where urban studies are confined to diagnostic analysis and optimistic calls for local inclusion to counteract state authority and foreign hegemony. This study critically examines the epistemic production of urban spaces at the nexus of heritage, modernity, and migration in the MENA, anchoring the criticism in a case study of urban development in Ras-Al-Ein – also known as the Muhajirin (refugees) neighbourhood – in the historic core of Amman. It then couples ethnographic interviews conducted with the residents of Ras-Al-Ein with decolonial thinking to explore local engagement with urban space as ‘subjugated knowledge’, and to contest the persistence of the AUK. It validates this engagement as local urban knowledge (LUK) and capitalises on the self-critique, irony and resistance depicted in Ras-Al-Ein to argue for a decolonial approach to urban knowledge. It argues that LUK can shift the debate in urban studies from practice analysis to an ethnographic theorisation of urban knowledge. This theorisation is crucial for challenging adverse perceptions of peoples and places and informing development with prudent knowledge.