‘Throwntogetherness’ in hostile environments

In this paper, we set a framework for the Special Feature on urban living together by highlighting the main forces which, we contend, have significantly reshaped urban citizenship in recent times. Nearly two decades after the formulation of Doreen Massey’s influential concept of ‘throwntogetherness’, we engage it in a conversation with differing, often contrasting, urban realities. Throwntogetherness highlights the making of urban space through fluidity, openness and diversity within a ‘power geometry’ of global neoliberalism. We analyse the concept’s engagement with recent countervailing forces, in particular neo-nationalism and the digitisation of the city. These forces have mobilised a range of ‘hostile environment’ policies towards migrant, indigenous and marginalized communities, propelling practices of bordering, denial of rights, housing displacement and exclusion. The new assemblage of forces, we further argue, intensify the dialectic tension between throwntogetherness and ‘thrownapartness’ and increasingly lead to ‘urban apartheid’ in cities across the globe. We draw on contributions to the Special Feature which engage with these tensions in Bologna, Rome, Singapore, Glasgow, Budapest, Jerusalem/Al-Quds and Dhaka. These case studies illustrate the re-making of urban citizens throwntogether and thrownapart in contemporary hostile environments.