• Urbicide in Syria
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Urbicide in Syria

$130.00
$130.00 $130.00
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Through the cases of Damascus and Aleppo and adopting a postcolonial perspective, this book explores how urbicide (the destruction and violent recomposition of urban space) is central to the Syrian...
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  • 24 June 2025
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This book provides an exhaustive analysis of the relationship between violence, urban space, and political subjectivity in Syria. It does so through an exploration of how urbicide, the violent destruction and alteration of the urban fabric, becomes a tool for the regime’s governmental and sovereign exercise of power, decisively redefining state-society dynamics and cementing political loyalty in Syria. Adopting a critical and postcolonial perspective, and through the cases of Damascus and Aleppo, the volume presents a unique perspective on the civil war by examining socio-material changes in everyday political spaces and processes, from mundane destruction to urban development and reconstruction efforts, and how these are experienced by local communities. Featuring rich data collection through interviews, archival research, and aesthetic sources, the book ultimately foregrounds Syrians’ political agency and creativity despite ruination.
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Price: $130.00
Pages: 250
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Imprint: Manchester University Press
Series: Identities and Geopolitics in the Middle East
Publication Date: 24 June 2025
ISBN: 9781526180261
Format: Hardcover
BISACs: POLITICAL SCIENCE / World / Middle Eastern, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / Urban, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Ideologies / General, Political ideologies and movements, Urban and municipal planning and policy
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'Urbicide in Syria: A Postcolonial understanding of civil war by Gabriel Garroum Pla is a polished and cohesive study of how war, through its tendency to destroy urban space, works to simultaneously construct and reinforce political subjectivities. Published as part of the Manchester University Press series on 'Identities and Geopolitics in the Middle East', the book certainly makes a significant contribution to this broad theme. Specifically, it does so by focusing on the concept of urbicide - that is urban destruction and spatial violence - during the Syrian conflict since 2011 and its postcolonial resonance... The sudden fall of the Assad regime in December 2024 does nothing to lessen the relevance of Urbicide in Syria. Rather, the work's value can be considered timeless, and perhaps especially timely at present.'
Thomas McGee, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies

Gabriel Garroum Pla is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF)

Foreword by Vivienne Jabri
Preface
Introduction
1 Conceptualising urbicide in the Middle East: A postcolonial approach
2 Shaping modern subjects: Syria under the French Mandate
3 Asad and the politics of space
4 Mapping an alternative Syria: Space and the politics of the Syrian Uprising
5 Whoever holds Damascus, holds Syria
6 Searching for a place on a map of Aleppo
Conclusion