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An Improvised Dispositif: Invisible Urban Planning in the Refugee Camp

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  • Lucas Oesch

Abstract

How does a refugee camp urbanize? Up to now, camps have been considered as either urban assemblages made by dwellers’ improvised tactics or spaces governed by disjointed urban planning policies. I demonstrate that there is another side to the urbanism of the refugee camp. A form of coherent institutional urban planning exists as well. It takes the shape of an improvised dispositif (apparatus). One of its main effects is to render the very process of urban planning invisible. I investigate this type of urbanism on the basis of fieldwork conducted in the Al‐Hussein Palestinian refugee camp in Amman, Jordan. I argue that this improvised dispositif of urban planning—of which state and non‐state institutions are part—is the result of a balancing act that ensures the temporary character of the camp, while allowing the implementation of a form of urban development that leads toward a material homogenization between the camp and the surrounding urban space. It does this by rendering its own processes invisible and being officially referred to as ‘improvement’. By emphasizing the key features of heterogeneity, invention and provisionality, I explain that the notion of a dispositif, coined by Foucault (1980), allows us to examine how institutions improvise away from more conventional urban planning. My analysis also complements Jeffrey's examination (2013) of institutional improvisation in the production of space, by showing that improvisation can be a form of strategic elaboration.

Suggested Citation

  • Lucas Oesch, 2020. "An Improvised Dispositif: Invisible Urban Planning in the Refugee Camp," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(2), pages 349-365, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:ijurrs:v:44:y:2020:i:2:p:349-365
    DOI: 10.1111/1468-2427.12867
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Ayham Dalal & Amer Darweesh & Philipp Misselwitz & Anna Steigemann, 2018. "Planning the Ideal Refugee Camp? A Critical Interrogation of Recent Planning Innovations in Jordan and Germany," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 3(4), pages 64-78.
    2. Giovanni Picker & Silvia Pasquetti, 2015. "Durable camps: the state, the urban, the everyday," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(5), pages 681-688, October.
    3. Romola Sanyal, 2014. "Urbanizing Refuge: Interrogating Spaces of Displacement," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(2), pages 558-572, March.
    4. Sanyal, Romola, 2014. "Urbanizing refuge: interrogating spaces of displacement," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 52160, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Colin McFarlane, 2011. "Assemblage and critical urbanism," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(2), pages 204-224, April.
    6. Irit Katz, 2015. "Spreading and concentrating," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(5), pages 727-740, October.
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