Peace between Peace(s)? Urban Peace and the Coexistence of Antagonists in City Spaces

ABSTRACT

The plurality and subjectivity of peace means that transitions from war are contested – i.e. permeated by conflicts between previously warring antagonists who want to (re)order postwar society according to competing peace(s). But while there always will exist mutually excluding peace(s), such outliers do not foreclose middle grounds where multiple peace(s) can coexist. In this article, I argue that the postwar city can generate coexistence between peace(s) of varying divergence through the creativity, accommodation, and fragmentation of city spaces. These arguments are illustrated through examples from postwar Belfast, Mitrovica, and Mostar. I term this conceptualization urban peace.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban peace
• postwar cities
• space
• Belfast
• Mitrovica
• Mostar

Introduction

The rethinking of peace – as plural and subjective rather than universal and objective – underlines that transitions from war are not axiomatic and unidirectional steps towards “peace” in the singular and given sense (Goetze 2017; Gusic 2019a; Richmond 2008). These transitions are rather contested and non-linear processes where previously warring antagonists continue to clash when attempting to (re)order postwar society according to competing peace(s).¹ Such contestations, however, do not imply that transitions from war must generate winners and losers. While mutually excluding peace(s) always will exist, these outliers do not foreclose middle grounds where peace(s) of varying divergence might coexist (Bargués-Pedreny 2016; Chandler and Richmond 2015; Mitchell 2011; Porter 2007; Pospisil 2019) – with coexistence between peace(s) understood as postwar society being socio-political ordered² so that multiple peace(s) exist together without war being likely or seen as necessary. In this article, I address the research problem of how coexistence between peace(s) might be reached by arguing that it can be generated in the postwar city through the creativity, accommodation, and fragmentation of city spaces. These arguments are illustrated through examples from postwar Belfast, Mitrovica, and Mostar. I term this conceptualization – which envisions how coexistence between peace(s) can happen in and through the postwar city – urban peace.

The above-mentioned possibilities for coexistence have generated multiple conceptual endeavours – such as hybrid peace (Richmond and Mac Ginty 2015), agonistic peace (Aggestam, Cristiano, and Strömbom 2015), and feminist peace (MacKenzie and Wagner 2021) – all of which focus on how coexistence between peace(s) can be generated, albeit not always employing this perspective and/or terminology. What defines these concepts is that they – rather than advancing positions on peace – envision how as many diverging peace(s) as possible might coexist in any given postwar society. But while these concepts advance knowledge on coexistence between peace(s), they only explore some avenues towards it. I argue that this leaves room for alternative conceptualizing. Existing concepts are also critiqued for being streamlined and inflexible, with the envisioned coexistence encompassing fewer peace(s) than possible (Randazzo 2017; Rampton and Nadarajah 2015). I argue that this opens up for more multifaceted and flexible conceptualizing that envisions broader coexistence between more peace(s). Existing concepts are lastly spatially generic while one-size-fits-all thinking rarely travels seamlessly (Mac Ginty 2021; Wennmann, Collins, and Reitano 2021). I argue that this necessitates conceptualizing coexistence between peace(s) through different spaces to understand the problems and possibilities of these spaces.

I address the problem of coexistence between peace(s) by arguing that the city – through its constitution and functioning – might generate such coexistence. I focus on the city for two reasons. First, because its ability to generate coexistence, in general, suggests that the postwar city – where war is over but the postwar order remains contested (Gusic 2019a) – might be able to generate coexistence between peace(s) (see e.g. Bădescu 2022; Bollens 2012; Carabelli 2018; Gusic 2019a; Kaldor and Sassen 2020; Mannergren Selimovic 2022). Second, because there is a future and current need for knowledge on coexistence between peace(s) in cities. Rapid urbanization means that future transitions to peace often will be urban problems – although neither exclusively, unrelatedly to the non-urban world, nor necessarily dominantly so (Elfversson, Gusic, and Höglund 2020; Graham 2011; Kaldor and Sassen 2020; Ljungkvist and Jarstad 2021; Wennmann and Jütersonke 2019). Postwar cities are parallelly often flashpoints of contemporary transitions from war, making knowledge on coexistence between peace(s) in cities also important today (Gusic 2019a; Wennmann, Collins, and Reitano 2021).

The focus on the postwar city’s constructive potential – by which I mean an ability to generate coexistence between peace(s) and improve relations between previously warring antagonists – is not entirely novel. Yet previous studies rarely attune to the complexities of peace since they understand it as universal, objective, and given (cf. Gusic 2019a with Bollens 2013; Büscher 2020; Calame and Charlesworth 2009; Kaldor and Sassen 2020; Wennmann, Collins, and Reitano 2021). Few attempts are therefore made to explore the postwar city’s potential to generate coexistence between peace(s), which is the research problem here. The concept of urban peace – in contrast – attunes to the plurality, subjectivity, and contestation of peace and therefore focuses on how city spaces can generate coexistence between peace(s).

Previous studies are also conceptually delimitated. When the complexities of peace are taken onboard, the subsequent research only argues that cities can generate limited coexistence between peace(s).³ It is argued that cities enable isolated, bottom-up, and hidden forms of coexistence between peace(s) – i.e. coexistence which is confined, does not materialize at the formal level, and/or is not exposed (see e.g. Carabelli 2018; Gusic 2019a; Hromadžić 2011; O’Driscoll 2021; Kaldor and Sassen 2020). The concept of urban peace focuses on how coexistence between peace(s) additionally can be generated across the entire city, at the formal level, and openly.

Previous studies lastly often focus on the postwar city’s failure to generate coexistence between peace(s) (Gusic 2019a) or how this potential has been lost (Bollens 2013; Sassen 2013). Urban peace acknowledges both these destructive trends, but additionally argues that the postwar city nevertheless retains much of its constructive potential.

This article contributes to three literatures. It contributes to peace research by advancing urban peace as an alternative concept on coexistence between peace(s), one which is attuned to city spaces, multifaceted and flexible, and envisions coexistence between starkly diverging peace(s). It also contributes to research on the postwar city by conceptualizing its constructive potential towards coexistence between peace(s) beyond the isolated, bottom-up, and hidden. In doing so, it also contributes to the wider effort of understanding cities as not only sites of war but also sites of peace (see e.g. Cole and Kappler 2022). It lastly contributes to the spatial turn in peace research, which has demonstrated that war and peace shape and are shaped by space but has yet to move beyond this relationality to explore which spaces can generate coexistence between peace(s) (Björkdahl and Buckley-Zistel 2016; 2022; Gusic 2019b). I argue that city spaces can (see also Bădescu 2022; Mannergren Selimovic 2022).

The article continues as follows. I first explore how transitions from war to peace are contested in order to contextualize the research problem and conceptualize the city in order to set the ground for its constructive potential. I then conceptualize how creativity, accommodation, and fragmentation can generate coexistence in city spaces. These three dynamics collectively constitute the concept of urban peace and are key to the argument that coexistence between peace(s) can be reached in and through the postwar city. Since the three generate different forms of coexistence between peace(s), through distinct processes, urban peace emerges as multifaceted, flexible, and therefore envisioning broad coexistence between peace(s) of varying divergence. I conclude with contributions of urban peace, reflections on coexistence between peace(s), and avenues for future research.

Contested war-to-peace transitions

Societies transitioning from war often continue to experience violence, repression, and inequality. These overlaps are neither unknown nor ignored, but they are often deemed transitional – i.e. when peace is implemented they will disappear. While not inaccurate per se, this reasoning only holds if transitions from war are understood as linear and uncontested steps towards peace in the universal and objective sense (Gusic 2019a; Richmond 2008). Which is how peace often is understood – a singular and globally transferable ideal whose implementation constitutes ‘a move from madness to sanity’ (Keen 2007, 9). Yet when scrutinized it becomes evident that peace is not the same for everyone while transitions to it hardly are unidirectional and axiomatic (Dietrich 2012; Goetze 2017; Randazzo 2017).

The starting point of this argument is that peace is a ‘constantly evolving concept’ rather than a given fact (Kühn 2012, 397). It is thus not ‘prior to experience or learning’ but contextual, fluctuating according to whatever ideas and principles it rests on (Richmond 2008, 18). The consequences are extensive. If peace is not given but created, then it will exist in plural and subjective forms since the almost infinite standpoints from which peace can be conceptualized makes every position challengeable for those who understand peace differently (Dietrich 2012; Richmond 2008; Väyrynen 2019). Competing versions of what peace is or should be will therefore always exist: ‘[w]hile we all might want peace, this does not necessarily mean that we all want the same things’ (Gusic 2019a, 25). Peace thereby metamorphoses from an axiomatically virtuous concept with general validity to merely a socio-political order according to which society is or is envisioned to be ordered (Dietrich 2012; Keen 2007; Polat 2010).

This rethinking of peace renders transitions to it non-linear and contested. If peace is plural and subjective, then transitions from war will both have multiple potential trajectories and conflicts over which one to pursue (Behr 2018; Randazzo 2017; Väyrynen 2019). Postwar societies subsequently emerge as permeated by conflicts over peace(s) – i.e. conflicts where antagonists attempt to (re)order society along competing socio-political orders (Gusic 2019a, 31–2; Klem 2018). These orders are – to some extent – unavoidably rather than transitionally violent, repressive, and unequal because certain peace(s) are so divergent that ‘acts towards one peace might be seen as acts against other peace(s)’ (Gusic 2019a, 26, italics in original). This makes the continuous existence – rather than transitory implementation – of any peace potentially violent, repressive, and unequal towards those who prefer other peace(s) (Goetze 2017; Polat 2010).

Conflicts over peace(s), however, do not mean that transitions from war must produce winners and losers. Mutually excluding peace(s) will always exist – like the Albanian and Serb ethnonational peace(s) in Kosovo, which cannot coexist since implementing one is either preconditioned on or results in the eradication of the other (Gusic 2019a). Such outliers, however, do not foreclose coexistence between peace(s) not involving the eradication of each other (Bargués-Pedreny 2016; Chandler and Richmond 2015; Mitchell 2011; Porter 2007; Pospisil 2019).

This has generated research on coexistence between peace(s), which I understand as postwar society being socio-political ordered so that multiple peace(s) exist together without war being likely or seen as necessary. The result is conceptual endeavours within peace research on how diverging peace(s) might coexist, despite disagreements and conflicts over what peace is and how it is reached (see e.g. Aggestam, Cristiano, and Strömbom 2015; Behr 2018; Bargués-Pedreny 2016; Dietrich 2012; MacKenzie and Wagner 2021; Mac Ginty and Richmond 2016; Mac Ginty 2021; Randazzo 2017; Visoka and Richmond 2017; Visoka 2019). What defines these endeavours is that they – rather than advancing positions on peace – envision how as many diverging peace(s) as possible might coexist in any given postwar society.

I advance the concept of urban peace as an endeavour envisioning how coexistence between a wide spectrum of peace(s) might be generated in and through the postwar city. Urban peace thereby sides with similar conceptual endeavours – just like the concept of hybrid peace envisions coexistence between peace(s) emerging through cross-fertilization where diverging peace(s) merge into one shared peace (Richmond and Mac Ginty 2015; Randazzo 2017) and the concept of agonistic peace envisions it emerging by making antagonist engage each other as political opponents rather than deadly enemies in shared institutions where the substance of peace is debated (Aggestam, Cristiano, and Strömbom 2015), the concept of urban peace envisions creativity, accommodation, and fragmentation in city spaces leading to coexistence between peace(s). Yet rather than critiquing these other concepts, I argue that urban peace both adds nuance to coexistence between peace(s) in general and sheds light on how it emerge in the postwar city.

Conceptualizing the city

In this section, I conceptualize the city through its constitutive aspects (heterogeneity, density, and openness and permeability) and some of its functioning dynamics (mixing and conflict). In the three subsequent sections, I conceptualize three additional dynamics (creativity, accommodation, and fragmentation) in-depth as I deem them central to how the postwar city can generate coexistence between peace(s).

This conceptualization is one out of many potential ones as definitive positions on the city are impossible (Amin and Thrift 2002). Its sheer complexity and fluidity – having an almost infinitive number of aspects and dynamics which are in constant flux – makes the city an ‘incomprehensible’ phenomenon (Young 1990, 240; see also Kaldor and Sassen 2020; Mumford 1938). Any conceptualization will therefore be an incomplete depiction neglecting important nuances (Beauregard 2018; Pullan and Baillie 2013; Sennett 2008). Yet its elusiveness and the limits of any conceptualization does not foreclose taking a position on the city. It does, however, necessitate rejecting totalizing visions, accepting its irreducibility, being open to contradictory entry points, and ultimately letting conceptual need guide the process (Amin and Thrift 2002; Beauregard 2018; Pullan and Baillie 2013). Conceptual need leads me towards the aspects and dynamics of the city enabling it to generate coexistence between peace(s). The specific focus on creativity, accommodation, and fragmentation is motivated by these three dynamics having – to the best of my knowledge – the highest potential to generate coexistence between peace(s) as well as being complementary since they generate different forms of coexistence, through distinct processes, and between peace(s) of varying divergence.

The reader might note a conceptual imbalance here, with most arguments on the city coming from urban studies rather than peace research. This is because I develop the concept of urban peace through the city’s constructive potential, which implies utilizing urban studies where the city is the research object (Brenner 2014). Peace research parallelly tends to either ignore conceptualizing the city or primarily takes inspiration from urban studies when it does (see Gusic 2019a). Yet I utilize peace research via studies on the war-peace-city nexus when suggesting translatability between the city and the postwar city – i.e. that the city’s potential for coexistence might enable coexistence between peace(s) in the postwar city. The city is furthermore conceptualized by synthesizing existing arguments, meaning that the article’s novelty is neither found in how the city is understood nor in that creativity, accommodation, and fragmentation generate coexistence. The novelty is that these dynamics enable coexistence between peace(s) in the postwar city and that combined they constitute urban peace, a concept envisioning how such coexistence might come about.

The city’s constitution is initially heterogenous since it is a ‘variegated and multiplex’ (Amin and Graham 1997, 418) space consisting of elements⁴ which are internal and external to the city, known and unknown to each other, stable and fluctuating over time and location (Mumford 1938; Simone 2004). This applies to urbanites as they differ in ‘every respect that differentiates people at all’ (Hall 1999, 612–613). They are friends and enemies, workers and unemployed, rich and poor; experience the city in vastly different ways; and lead mutually excluding ways of life (Wilson 1995; Wirth 1964; Young 1990). Heterogeneity also applies to the city’s ordering as it is multifaceted and shaped by security forces and criminal organizations, administrators and urban planners, corporations and NGOs. These differ in orders strived for, scales operated at, and tactics and strategies employed (Amin and Thrift 2002; Jacobs 1994). The city is also a heterogenous locality since it is a ‘mosaic of little worlds’ rather than some coherent whole (Park 1915, 680). It consists of micro-sites used differently depending on time, context, and user; districts playing different roles in city life; and infrastructural networks generating connectivity across the city and beyond (Brenner 2014; Lefebvre 1996; Sassen 2001). Heterogeneity also applies to the city’s goods and services, norms and ideologies, possibilities and risks, resources and problems, and so on (Jacobs 1994; Wilson 2017). The same goes for what roles cities play such as economic hubs, political centres, and social melting-pots (Beauregard 2018).

The city is furthermore dense since its heterogenous elements are concentrated to and ‘thrown-together’ (Massey 2005) in spaces whose composition generates proximity between similar and dissimilar alike (Bauman 2003; Lefebvre 1996). Ethnonationalists, left-wing activists, politicians, criminals, and executives are neighbours; security forces, NGOs, and corporations overlap when ordering the city; religious institutions, LGBTQ clubs, and homeless shelters are located in the same areas and buildings (Mumford 1938; Sennett 2008). The same goes for competing enterprises, antagonistic ideologies, and repressive or emancipating structures (Amin and Graham 1997; Sassen 2001).

The city is lastly open and permeable since it is spatially constituted so that its elements have contact points between which movement is possible (Mumford 1938; McFarlane 2021; Robinson 2006). Antagonists and friends, protesters and police, customers and traders thus have somewhere to meet – like streets or parks – and ways of getting there – like pavements or public transport (Sennett 2008; Wilson 1995). In the transition from war, the city’s constitution thus renders the postwar city a space which holds multiple peace(s) advanced by antagonists who are densely located and have somewhere to meet.

The city initially functions through mixing since it makes its elements engage each other (Park 1915; Young 2010). Homeless people and minorities mix with shoppers and far-right groups, security forces with protesters and criminals, art galleries and luxury shops with religious venues and deprived areas. As do ideologies, classes, and ways of life. The city functions as a meeting place which produces encounters and juxtapositions (Amin and Thrift 2002; Madanipour 2020; Mannergren Selimovic 2022). These, however, are not possible as much as unavoidable. Density combined with openness and permeability throw together the city’s elements so much that they are denied isolation (Amin and Graham 1997; Sennett 2008). Mixing is thereby forced upon them to the point of being ‘impossible to avoid for more than a brief moment’ (Bauman 2003, 27). People cannot avoid meeting others, political projects are never unchallenged, affluence is inseparable from poverty (Beauregard 2018; Sennett 2008; Simone 2004).

The city also functions through conflict since it is a ‘clashing point’ for its heterogenous elements (Amin and Graham 1997, 413). Cities have throughout history been where:

settlement between contradictory interests, ambitions and forces [is] intermittently fought, negotiated, undermined, broken, revoked, re-fought, re-negotiated, challenged, found and lost, buried and resurrected. (Bauman 2003, 14)

The reasons are many. When heterogenous elements are forced to mix, conflict is bound to emerge (Bauman 2003; Massey 2005). The political, economic, and social centrality of cities also leads to conflicts over them (Brenner 2014; Gusic 2020). That which generates and/or is the expression of conflict – riots, terrorist attacks, radical movements, economic inequality – moreover often concentrate in and to cities (Beauregard 2018; Elfversson, Gusic, and Höglund 2020) while rapid urbanization, city development, and ‘the right to the city’ also cause conflict (Büscher 2018; Lefebvre 1996).

These conflicts are multifaceted and multiscalar (Beauregard 2018). Conflicts happen over service provisions between citizens, over streets between criminals and police, over noise between clubs and residents (Amin and Graham 1997; Bauman 2003). There is also conflict over the city’s ordering including over revenue flows, planning, and security (Amin and Thrift 2002; Lefebvre 1996). Conflicts furthermore take place over what roles the city should play in wider contexts and between political movements, economic ideologies, and geo-political forces (Bădescu 2022; Beauregard 2018; Graham 2011). In transitions from war, the city’s functioning thus makes the postwar city a space where peace(s) and the antagonists advancing them engage in unavoidable conflictual mixing.

This conflictual mixing is constructive and destructive (Amin and Thrift 2002; Lefebvre 1996; Kriesberg and Dayton 2017; Mitchell 2011; Porter 2007). While conflicts over service provisions can lead to resentment and poor delivery they can also generate solidarity and innovation. Just as conflicts over discrimination can lead to further suppression or expansion of rights. Conflictual mixing does consequently not make everything perpetually contested (Beauregard 2018; Young 2010). The city generates interdependencies between its heterogenous elements, problems that know no borders, and indivisible resources which all need (Bauman 2003; Hall 1999; Lefebvre 1996). To some extent, the city demands coexistence and therefore is often theorized as ‘the “being-together” of strangers’ and the norms, orders, sites, and groups generated by these strangers (Young 1990, 234). This coexistence can be reached via three additional dynamics: creativity, accommodation, and fragmentation. It is on these three that the concept of urban peace builds on.

Here, some caveats are needed. Initially, these three dynamics are ideal-types – rather than descriptive categories with empirical equivalents, they are conceptual constructs used to advance knowledge (Mannergren Selimovic 2020). This makes the examples used to illustrate urban peace temporally and spatially limited snapshots, not attempts to capture complex realities. Each example could actually be used for several ideal-types since they empirically transgress conceptual borders.⁵

Another caveat is that the city’s potential to generate coexistence between peace(s) is derived from urban studies and research on postwar cities, making the examples illustrations of how urban peace can materialize, not insights on which these arguments are based (see also McFarlane 2021). A related caveat is that my aim is to conceptualize coexistence between peace(s) in the postwar city rather than analyse war-to-peace transitions. I do consequently not employ urban peace but rather demonstrate its analytical potential – e.g. exploring how city spaces best utilize the postwar city’s constructive potential.

The last caveat is that each dynamic can be constructive and destructive. This is unsurprising given the city’s Janus-faced nature – e.g. enabling inclusive decision-making processes while excluding marginalized groups or generating growth while stimulating exploitation (Hall 1999; McFarlane 2021). The city is thus not some cosmopolitan antipode to divisions or a vanguard against inequality (Amin and Thrift 2002). The same goes for creativity, accommodation, and fragmentation. I focus on their constructive potential to conceptualize urban peace, but they too are Janus-faced (Beauregard 2018; Lefebvre 1996). This potential destructiveness is even more accentuated in the postwar city (Gusic 2019a). What follows is thus not a romanticization of postwar cities, but an argument that – apart from being destructive – the postwar city might also generate coexistence between peace(s). The postwar city’s destructive face, however, must never be downplayed, because ‘[t]o celebrate the city without acknowledging the deeply anchored nature of its antagonisms is to hide from reality’ (Beauregard 2018, 20). I therefore refrain from idealizations. Yet the concept of urban peace demonstrates that city spaces might generate coexistence between peace(s).

The empirical illustrations are based on over 150 semi-structured interviews, multiple participant observations, and countless conversations in Belfast, Mitrovica, and Mostar from repeated trips (two weeks to several months each) since 2011. I thus have much experience with these cities, even if I have primarily focused on their destructive impact and their unmaterialized constructive potential (Björkdahl and Gusic 2013; Gusic 2015, 2019a). Yet I also discovered some coexistence between peace(s). It is on these insights – and secondary sources – that the illustrations are based.

Creativity and coexistence of peace(s)

Creativity is the first dynamic of urban peace through which coexistence between different peace(s) can be generated. When heterogenous elements find themselves in dense, open, and permeable city spaces of unavoidable conflictual mixing, they will not necessarily engage in destructive clashes (Hall 1999; Lefebvre 1996). Partly because conflicts can have constructive outcomes. Yet city spaces also stimulate ‘chance encounters’ (Massey 2005) which enable elements to exit comfort zones, encounter ‘novel, strange, and surprising’ norms, people, ideas, orders, and so on (Young 1990, 239), discover that they have common problems and are interdependent, and negotiate city life with each other (Amin 2008; Simone 2004). These engagements can lead to creativity – which I understand as elements coming together in dynamic encounters, where they collaborate and experiment, and ultimately either transform that which already is or create that which is not yet (Bauman 2003; Robinson 2006). The reason for elements coming together, connecting with each other, and ultimately creating new relationships, products, norms, and organizations and/or transforming old ones stretch from attraction and curiosity to opportunism and need (Amin and Thrift 2002; Simone 2004; Young 2010). Yet the result is often change, innovation, or fusion – all enabled by the ‘opportunities for newness’ provided by city spaces (Robinson 2006, 252).

Creativity thus makes the city a space which can ‘cross-fertiliz[e]’ (Hall 1999, 277) its heterogenous elements (Robinson 2006; Simone 2004) as it enables them to ‘step outside of conventional boxes, draw on diverse resources and ideas, and create new solutions for old problems’ (Nicholls 2008, 843). Potential results are new things constituting more than the sum of their parts. The city’s concentrated demands and diverse workforces generate new technologies, goods, and services (Sassen 2001). When people who otherwise would not have met do in city spaces, ‘new kinds of social relationships’ emerge (Hall 1999, 281). The common problems and interdependencies of city life are often addressed through new institutions or networks (Beauregard 2018). When food cultures or music styles meet, fusion ensues. The same goes for ideologies, orders, and identity-groups (Lefebvre 1996; Robinson 2006). Creativity consequently makes the city ‘the conjunction of seemingly endless possibilities of remaking’ (Simone 2004, 9), a melting-pot where differences come together, and ultimately the incubator of human coexistence (Bauman 2003; Madanipour 2020; Park 1915). While creativity hardly is unique to the city, the concentration and thrown-togetherness of its elements sets city spaces apart because they make these engagements part of everyday life rather than something needing active pursuit. As Émile Durkheim noted: ‘no ground is more favourable to evolutions of all sorts’ (quoted in Coward 2004, 296).

In terms of coexistence between peace(s), I argue that creativity in the postwar city allows its different peace(s) and the antagonists advancing them to discover that they have common problems and are interdependent; meet “the other” as a reality rather than a caricatured image; and engage in negotiations over peace(s) and the city (Bollens 2012; Büscher 2020; Danielak 2020; Gusic 2019a; Mannergren Selimovic 2022; Pullan and Baillie 2013). These engagements can generate common visions for peace, shared orders, and improved relations (Bădescu 2022; Kallus and Kolodney 2010; Kaldor and Sassen 2020). Creativity thus makes the postwar city a space where coexistence between peace(s) can be reached through new, shared realities:

It is in the city that the strangers who in the global space confront each other as hostile states, inimical civilisations or military adversaries, meet as individual human beings, watch each other at close quarters, talk to each other, learn each other’s ways, negotiate the rules of life in common, cooperate and, sooner or later, get used to each other’s presence and, on an increasing number of occasions, find pleasure in sharing company. (Bauman 2003, 38)

Creativity in Mostar

Mostar Rock School (MRS) illustrates how creativity might lead to coexistence between peace(s) in the postwar city. Mostar was the epicentre of the 1993–1994 “war within the war” in Bosnia–Herzegovina and still remains divided into the Bosniak east and the Croat west. It is ruled by ethnonational elites engaged in conflicts over peace(s) where the goal is dominance: ‘everyone wants this to be one [united] city, but for it to be Croat or Bosniak’ (interview with NGO activist 19 August 2014, Mostar). The modus operandi until then is to keep the in-group cohesive in ethnonationally pure spheres where engagement with “the other” is minimal and everything (employment, education, healthcare, socializing, and infrastructure) is Bosniak or Croat (Björkdahl and Gusic 2013). Mostar, however, nevertheless retains that which enables creativity. It holds heterogeneity of peace(s) and the antagonists advancing them (Forde 2019a). These can engage each other easily since the city is divided in how it is perceived and lived – e.g. “our/their” side or monoethnic education – rather than built, thus remaining open and permeable (Gusic 2019a). Conflictual mixing between peace(s) therefore still happens.

MRS takes advantage of this. Its principal purpose is teaching music (interview with leader 19 August 2014, Mostar). Yet those behind it also strive to be antipodes to ethnonationalism (Forde 2019b; Pehlić 2016 in Balkan Diskurs). They subsequently created MRS in 2012 to ‘connect [school-aged] young people in achieving their common goals, regardless of their […] background’ and become ‘a place of encounter and cooperation [which] promotes common values and celebrates diversity’ (MRS Statute 2016). The school is located only minutes away from the east–west divide, with students taught several classes per week and playing in bands outside of class. Multiple bands have “made it”, there are annual MRS concerts, and students often go on tours (Dražeta 2021; Pehlić 2016 in Balkan Diskurs). MRS thus provides students with a quality education. Combined with having no “incidents”, its popularity is growing and today it has waiting lists (conversation with parent 9 November 2015, Mostar; see also Forde 2019b). But the school also brings diversity together:

Of course we are a rock school, and of course our primary goal is to educate these young people […] but we also strive for interaction. (interview with teacher 19 August 2014, Mostar)

MRS has also emerged as a space where students exit comfort zones (Mostar’s parallel worlds), engage the demonized “other” as an actual reality, experience the novel and strange (each other, new music), and realize that they have common problems and interests (music, growing up). This makes MRS a melting-pot where students across the divide come together, form new relationships, and engage in alternative ways of living such as befriending “the other” and discarding ethnonationalism (Dražeta 2021; Forde 2019a; Pehlić 2016 in Balkan Diskurs). Soon after enrolling they begin transcending conflict lines:

These kids […] from these different sides soon […] start going out, celebrating birthdays, together they go camping, to nature, hiking, to the ocean. They simply interact, they hang out. And this is outside of the school framework where they have an obligation to cooperate and interact. It is pure […] evidence that this is working. […] They hang out without anything – absolutely anything – based on them being Croats or Bosniaks. (interview with teacher 19 August 2014, Mostar)

I have observed these relationships, shared realities, and common ideas for Mostar myself when visiting the premises or hanging out with students and staff elsewhere. The students do transgress conflict lines and primarily because of MRS (conversation with teacher 9 November 2015, Mostar; see also Forde 2019b). While some students come from tolerant backgrounds, most do not, meaning that they have had limited contact with “the other” and only ever known an ethnonationally divided Mostar (conversation with student 20 August 2014, Mostar; see also Dražeta 2021; Forde 2019b). But once these new contacts are established, many students make lifelong friendships with “the other”, come to understand the ethnonationalist Bosniak and Croat peace(s) as bizarre, and render a united Mostar as the only solution – thus suggesting that the city’s creativity (which MRS utilizes) can lead to ethnonationalist peace(s) being abandoned for common positions on peace, divided realities becoming shared, and tense relations transforming into friendships (Forde 2019a, 2019b; Dražeta 2020).

Accommodation and coexistence of peace(s)

The potential of creativity is promising, but it is hardly the only outcome of conflictual mixing. When people, ideologies, and orders mix they can – rather than create something new – just as well emerge as incompatible. This, however, does not necessarily lead to destructive conflict. The reason is the second dynamic of urban peace: accommodation.

City life demands accommodation of – and thereby creates coexistence between – elements which are in conflict. The reasons are multiple. The city is the centre for trade, art, and innovations (Amin and Thrift 2002; Hall 1999). This requires cooperation between whatever incompatible groups, ways of life, or economic interests exist there (Boyd 2006; Simmel 2010). City life also means “being in it together” as the city holds problems which transgress conflict lines (Young 1990, 238). Some problems – e.g. waste management or water supplies – are just best addressed together (Beauregard 2018) while non-solutions to other problems have indiscriminate effects like when pollution or diseases in one area spread to the entire city. Since the city denies its elements complete isolation, “their” problems will ultimately become our problems: ‘living together in close proximity means that any penury, whomever it afflicts directly, may rebound on all the others’ (Bauman 2003, 14). Interdependencies are another reason (Lefebvre 1996; Wirth 1964). The city stimulates role segmentation, making it a hypocentre of progress, but also undermining any self-sufficiency.

[The city’s] complex division of labour […] means that we are entirely dependent for the satisfaction of even our most basic needs on a multitude of individuals who are necessarily strangers to us. (Boyd 2006, 871)

City life is thus dependent on contact between incompatibilities: ‘[t]here is no escaping the city’s interdependencies and thus the need for at least a modicum of tolerance toward others’ (Beauregard 2018, 134). The city also holds such multitudes of potential encounters that only fractions can be engaged in. Everything else must be ignored:

[I]f the unceasing external contact of numbers of persons in the city should be met by the same number of inner reactions as in the small town […] one would be completely atomized internally and would fall into an unthinkable mental condition. (Simmel 2010, 106)

City life lastly means that incompatibilities are unavoidable: ‘[d]eciding not to come into contact with people unlike oneself is difficult to do in a city’ (Beauregard 2018, 133). The same applies to everything else, from criminal networks and police to churches and mosques; the city offers no permanent shelter from encounters (Sennett 2008; Young 1990).

The result is that the city’s elements have to accommodate each other: ‘the prospect of a shared destiny means also the need for mutual accommodation and compromise, with an all-out war as the only […] alternative’ (Bauman 2003, 13). Such accommodation happens through what I call pragmatic engagement and indifferent co-presence. Pragmatic engagement means that incompatibilities are set aside when common problems or interdependencies demand cooperation (Amin 2008; Simone 2004). Examples include political rivals building hospitals together or trade across conflict lines (Landau and Freemantle 2016; Kaldor and Sassen 2020; Young 1990). This pragmatism is not always eagerly engaged in or frictionless, but the need for cooperation makes it necessary.

Yet city life often only demands passive acceptance of – rather than active cooperation across – incompatibilities (Amin 2008; Wilson 2017). Such accommodation is reached through indifferent co-presence, meaning that during times, in spaces, and over issues neither demanding cooperation nor being contested, the city’s elements adopt ‘mind your own business’ attitudes (Landau & Freemantle 2016, 943). Right-wing politicians and LGBTQ activist consequently ride the bus together while mosques and synagogues exist on the same streets (Boyd 2006; Simmel 2010; Tonkiss 2003). Hardly without any resentments or tensions, but city life necessitates accepting that which we ‘fear, dislike or simply don’t understand’ (Sennett 2012, 4).

Accommodation thus makes the city a space which might generate ‘a pragmatic, disengaged co-existence’ (Landau and Freemantle 2016, 942; see also Sennett 2012). If we need to cooperate with and/or accept each other in order to live in the city, then we are bound to develop an ‘openness to unassimilated otherness’ (Young 1990, 227) as well as a preparedness to – however unwillingly – live together ‘without the compulsion to be the same’ (Beauregard 2018, 146). Accommodation thus leads to a ‘pluralisation of possibilities of being on the same territory’ (David Campbell quoted in Landau and Freemantle 2016, 944).

In terms of coexistence between peace(s), I argue that accommodation in the postwar city might lead its peace(s) and the antagonists advancing them to engage each other pragmatically when needed or remain indifferent to each other when not (Bollens 2012; Pullan and Baillie 2013; Wennmann, Collins, and Reitano 2021). There is thus potential for incompatible peace(s) to be envisioned simultaneously, distinct orders to coexist, and non-polemic relations to develop (Kallus and Kolodney 2010; O’Driscoll 2021). The postwar city thereby emerges as a space able to make incompatible peace(s) coexist – ‘together, intimately, closely, yet indifferently and unattached’ (Laurier and Philo 2006, 193; see also Nagle 2009; Mac Ginty 2021).

Accommodation in Belfast

Belfast City Centre illustrates how accommodation might lead to coexistence between peace(s) in the postwar city. The improvements in Belfast since “the Troubles” ended in 1998 are huge. Soldiers are off the streets, paramilitaries much less active, violence down, and the city centre open. Belfast, however, still suffers from conflicts over peace(s) as the status question – whether Northern Ireland belongs to the Republic of Ireland or the United Kingdom – remains unresolved and both Catholics and Protestants engage in zero-sum politics. Children also go to segregated schools, residential clustering is prevalent, and “peacewalls” are widespread (Gusic 2019a; Murtagh and Shirlow 2006).

In this ambiguous status quo – where improvements are huge yet conflicts over peace(s) rage on through entrenched politics, securitization of areas, and outbursts of violence (Gusic 2019a) – the city centre has emerged as the site for coexistence (Nagle 2009; O’Dowd and Komarova 2013).

The city centre tends to be the meeting place […]. If you want to get away from that whole “your side or my side” thing, the city centre is neutral space. (interview with public space activist 15 September 2015, Belfast)

This is partly due to overall improvements. Yet they hardly explain why those engaged in conflicts over peace(s) outside the city centre are not inside it. I argue that accommodation might be key. The regenerated city centre demands cooperation to create jobs and attract investments (interview with architect 28 September 2015, Belfast; see also Murtagh 2004; O’Dowd and Komarova 2013). Its level of mixing – making avoidance impossible – furthermore demands accepting “the other” there while the multitude of potential encounters means that people’s identities must be ignored (Gusic 2019a). The result is accommodation, which suggests that city spaces can lead incompatible peace(s) to be envisioned simultaneously and non-polemic relations to develop between antagonists (Nagle 2009; O’Dowd and Komarova 2013). Many who engage each other pragmatically (e.g. during work) indeed do so to the extent they must (Rallings 2014).

There is […] politeness and avoidance around [conflict] issues, so people just do not talk about them, and then they go home and live in their separate worlds. (interview with Good Relations Unit Officer 2 October 2014, Belfast)

Those who find themselves indifferently sharing space also often ignore each other (Murtagh and Shirlow 2006):

We will have a big concert [and] you will have 10.000 people there […]. But there are all little groups of three Catholics here, three Protestants there […] They are all together […] and it looks like a great coming together of Protestants and Catholics, but it is nothing of the kind. (interview with journalist 2 October 2014, Belfast)

Yet this is still coexistence between peace(s) (cf. Mitchell 2011). Especially in Belfast, where accommodation in the city centre was recently unthinkable and still is in many areas outside of it (Murtagh 2010; Nagle 2009; Rallings 2014).

Fragmentation and coexistence of peace(s)

Accommodation also shows potential for coexistence, but not everyone is pragmatic enough to cooperate with or indifferent enough to accept “the other”. Some elements just are too polemic (Gusic 2019a; Thrift 2005). Yet coexistence is possible also between many of them through the third dynamic of urban peace: fragmentation.

Fragmentation of city life allows polemic elements to exist apart there (Park 1915; Wirth 1964). The city is fragmented because its complexity and fluidity undermine coherence across time and space, instead leading it to function in atomized, incomplete, and transient ways (Laurier, Whyte, and Buckner 2002; Mannergren Selimovic 2022). Urbanites subsequently live fragmented lives because most dimensions of life – employment, activism, family, crime, and socializing – are divided into detached spaces that seldom overlap (Jacobs 1994; Sennett 1991; Wirth 1964). While city life might force urbanites into physical proximity, fragmentation parallelly enables high levels of social non-contact: ‘[those] who touch elbows on the street, still live in totally different worlds’ (Park 1915, 595). Fragmentation also means that the city is not permeated by an omnipotent order, but rather holds a ‘multiplicity of divergent and discontinuous’ (Amin and Thrift 2002, 28) orders which compete with each other; operate in distinct times and spaces; and have limited reach due to being contested by those targeted (Doderer 2011; Wirth 1964). Fragmentation thus means that ‘the city must be conceived as a social order of parts [rather than] a coherent, controllable whole’ (Sennett 2008, 141, my emphasis). The city does not function as one locality either but is fragmented into public squares and private shopping centres, safe and unsafe neighbourhoods, school buildings and workplaces (Massey 2005; Sennett 1991). While most of these are adjacent or connected, they nevertheless tend to be separated, sometimes to the point of becoming ‘urban bubbles’ operating apart and producing diverse realities (O’Dowd and Komarova 2013, 243; see also Amin and Graham 1997).

Fragmentation thus makes the city a kaleidoscopic space which escapes monism and holism (Mumford 1938; Sennett 2008). One outcome is that coexistence between polemic elements is enabled through what I call separation and seclusion – both of which are enabled by the city’s fragmentation. Separation reduces the need for engagement and is possible because fragmentation allows clustering into different city parts, which creates homogenous areas that are ‘insulated, geographically and socially, from everything else that surrounds them’ (Amin and Graham 1997, 419). In these areas, elements are allowed to lead existences where the polemic “other” is rarely encountered (Beauregard 2018; O’Dowd and Komarova 2013). Examples include gated communities or identity-based clusters (Graham 2011; Park 1915). This generates coexistence between polemic elements as they are allowed to live ‘together separately’ (Gaffikin, McEldowney, and Sterrett 2010, 495).

Yet not all elements are able to separate themselves into insulated areas (Amin 2008; Beauregard 2018). Here, seclusion enters the picture. Seclusion reduces the exposure of “alternative/disruptive/rebellious” engagements and is possible because fragmentation – in addition to allowing different elements separation – also offers repressed elements three “escape routes” through which they can seclude themselves from those who repress them. The first escape route is anonymity of the crowd. I noted earlier that urbanites can only engage with fractions of those around them. Fragmentation additionally makes most of these engagements segmental, impersonal, transitory, and therefore limited on insight (Sennett 1991; Wilson 2017). This combination of fractional engagement and superficial information means that urbanites know exceedingly little about almost everyone they encounter (Hall 1999; Wirth 1964). This allows the repressed possibilities to escape social control and seclude themselves from those who repress them because ‘incomplete knowledge joins to anonymity in the public realm’ (Sennett 2010, 261; see also Laurier and Philo 2006). The second escape route is non-compliance. There are always times and spaces when different orders – e.g. security forces, regulations, family values – are inefficient, non-existent, and/or outrivalled. Such problems are hardly unique to the city, but it exaggerates them since fragmentation makes orders harder to establish and easier to challenge there (Doderer 2011; Simmel 2010). These limitations make seclusion through non-compliance a recurring option to those targeted by different orders, like when drug dealers operate where (deprived areas and private homes) and when (night-time) police forces exert less control (Boyd 2006; Nicholls 2008). The third escape route is shelter-seeking as fragmentation leaves the cityscape filled with ‘hidden nooks and crannies’ which are unknown or neglected by most and therefore provide the repressed refuge, like when LGBTQ people find seclusion in underground clubs hidden away from disapproving families (Amin 2012, 61; Mannergren Selimovic 2022; Wilson 1995).

These escape routes make the city the socio-political space where the repressed can find seclusion from those who repress them (Sennett 1991; Simmel 2010; Young 1990). It is therefore unsurprising that cities often are where the repressed congregate to, find refuge in, and start movements from (Beauregard 2018; Young 2010). The city’s fragmentation thereby generates even more coexistence. Since seclusion in the city does not negate repression from the city, a seemingly paradoxical coexistence emerges where the repressed find seclusion in the midst of those who repress them.

In terms of coexistence between peace(s), I argue that fragmentation in the postwar city allows its polemic peace(s) and the antagonists advancing them to keep away from each other. This can happen either through the separation of peace(s) when the antagonists advancing them are equally strong or the seclusion of peace(s) when one side is much weaker (Mitchell 2011; Pullan and Baillie 2013). Fragmentation thus means that polemic peace(s) can envision an existence without “the other”, distinct orders can be pursued in the same city without constituting immanent threats to each other, and relations of non-contact between antagonists can develop (Bollens 2013; Graham 2011; Gusic 2019a; Kaldor and Sassen 2020; O’Dowd and Komarova 2013). The postwar city thereby emerges as able to generate coexistence between peace(s) which are so polemic that they can neither be merged nor made to accommodate each other.

Separation in Mitrovica

Mitrovica illustrates how separation – made possible by fragmentation – might generate coexistence between peace(s). While not that central during the 1998–1999 war, the city swiftly became the epicentre for Kosovo’s conflicts over peace(s) and was separated along its Ibar river into the Albanian south and the Serb north (Bátora et al. 2020). This separation encompasses almost everything from education, healthcare, and social services to electricity supply and water distribution, which are provided in parallel (Gusic 2019b).⁶ Friendships are rare, children do not learn each other’s languages, and many never go “over there”.

If you take a walk in the city, you will see that there are two systems […] which function completely on their own […] My personal experience is that I get to the bridge and after the bridge nothing exist. (interview with NGO activist 18 June 2014, Mitrovica)

This separation of Mitrovica might seem detrimental to coexistence between peace(s) in the city, but to some extent it actually enables it as the ethnonational Albanian and Serb peace(s) are so polemic that anything but separation leads to tensions (Gusic 2019a). Albanians want to incorporate the entire city into Kosovar institutions and see Belgrade’s return as unthinkable: ‘Albanians cannot live where Serbs rule’ (interview with community worker 4 May 2015, Mitrovica). Serbs in turn refuse to accept Kosovo’s independence, want to keep the city divided, and see life under Pristina as impossible: ‘Serbs will not be equal in the Kosovar system’ (interview with businessperson 16 May 2015, Mitrovica). The peace(s) thus equate group survival with non-contact: ‘people cannot live together, next to one another yes, but together no’ (interview with local ICO official 23 November 2011, Mitrovica; see also Clark 2014; Gusic 2015).

The reasons behind this sentiment are many but their outcome is unequivocal: these peace(s) can neither be merged nor made to accommodate each other (Clark 2014; Gusic 2015). Separation, however, has emerged as a tolerable status quo (Gusic 2019a). The end-result is that polemic peace(s) are envisioned in the same city, different orders exist in parallel without constituting immanent threats to each other, and antagonists have non-contact (Bátora et al. 2020; Gusic 2015; 2019a). The ethnonational peace(s) indeed envision futures without each other, the pursued orders are seen as long-term threats, and non-contact perpetuates prejudice (Gusic 2019b). Yet a contrasting analysis is that separation makes Mitrovica the most diverse city in Kosovo with substantial numbers of Albanians and Serbs living side-by-side.

Seclusion in Belfast, Mitrovica, Mostar

Belfast, Mitrovica, and Mostar all illustrate how seclusion might generate coexistence. In all three cities anti-ethnonationalist peace(s) – which envision common life across conflict lines – are in seemingly hopeless situations (Gusic 2019a). Yet seclusion – made possible by fragmentation – allows these weaker peace(s) to partly escape repression from the ethnonational peace(s).

In Belfast City Centre, seclusion through anonymity of the crowd allows people to hang out across ethnonationalist conflict lines (interview with LGBTQ activist 14 September 2015, Belfast; see also Nagle 2009; Rallings 2014). This is possible because those in whose presence such interactions happen often know nothing about those around them, meaning that even if these strangers are ethnonationalists they cannot exercise social control because they rarely can identify cross-identity interactions (Gusic 2019a).

In Mostar, seclusion through non-compliance allows people to engage “the other” when and where ethnonationalism has limited presence – e.g. during the tourist season or in “alternative” venues (Forde 2019a; Gusic 2019a). Then and there those who disagree with ethnonationalism can resist by envisioning common futures or just hanging out (interview with anti-corruption activist 28 August 2014, Mostar; see also Carabelli 2018; Forde 2019b).

In Mitrovica, there are multiple sites – like NGO offices or private homes – which are unknown or neglected by most and therefore serve as shelters in which people can seclude themselves in order to meet “the other” and/or maintain prewar relationships (Borch 2017; Gusic 2019a). These sites are not permanently hidden, but the inability of orders to permeate the entire city means that those who want often can find some shelter (interview with OSCE official 18 June 2014, Mitrovica; see also Clark 2014).

These examples demonstrate how fragmentation might generate coexistence by allowing the repressed seclusion. The result is that peace(s) advanced by weaker antagonists are envisioned in the midst of stronger peace(s), parallel orders are pursued without being exposed to immanent threats, and non-contact with repressors is possible. This is no easy coexistence between peace(s). These peace(s) are demonized, the subsequent orders face long-term threats, and those advancing them struggle to keep away. Yet it still is coexistence – especially given the environments in which these peace(s) reside.

Conclusions

The three dynamics above – creativity, accommodation, and fragmentation – constitute in concert what I call urban peace: a concept envisioning how coexistence between peace(s) might be reached between different, incompatible, and even polemic peace(s) in and through the postwar city. This is possible because the postwar city operates through diverse dynamics that generate different forms of coexistence. Creativity merges peace(s), accommodation makes peace(s) unable and/or unwilling to be merged engage each other pragmatically or accept each other indifferently, and fragmentation divides peace(s) so polemic that they cannot engage each other. Collectively these dynamics make urban peace a multifaceted and flexible concept envisioning how city spaces might create coexistence between peace(s) of varying divergence.

The concept of urban peace thereby advances knowledge on coexistence between peace(s), on the postwar city’s constructive potential, and on city spaces. I argued earlier that more exploration is needed in peace research on coexistence between peace(s) since existing concepts are unexhaustive, streamlined and inflexible, and spatially generic. Urban peace responds to these openings. It is an alternative, multifaceted, and flexible concept envisioning coexistence between peace(s) of varying divergence through city spaces. While the focus on postwar city’s constructive potential is not entirely new, previous studies have not fully taken onboard the complexities of peace, limited their exploration of coexistence between peace(s), and addressed the postwar city’s potential primarily as unfulfilled or missing. Urban peace – in contrast – is a concept which explores how coexistence between peace(s) might be generated – rather than why it is not – across the city.

Urban peace also generates broader conclusions on coexistence between peace(s), which often is seen as antagonists coming together into cohesive societies based on solidarity and common goals, stable political systems, and harmonious relations (Landau and Freemantle 2016; MacKenzie and Wagner 2021; Mitchell 2011; Randazzo 2017; Richmond and Mac Ginty 2015; Thrift 2005). Urban peace suggests that this needs not to be the case. While creativity might lead to such coexistence between peace(s), accommodation and fragmentation provide nuance and broaden our thinking. Accommodation suggests that coexistence between peace(s) can be antagonists suffering each other in societies based on dissensus, volatile political systems, and instrumental or indifferent relations. And fragmentation suggests that coexistence between peace(s) can even be antagonists keeping apart in atomized societies based on antagonism, competing political systems, and misanthropic or non-existent relations. Coexistence between peace(s) is thus not necessarily created, and destructive conflict is not necessarily avoided, through citywide harmony or contact. It can also be generated through disunity and division. Yet these forms of coexistence between peace(s) are neither static nor disconnected. Progress along the conceptual spectrum is both possible and often builds on more minimalist forms of coexistence between peace(s) (cf. Mitchell 2011; Pospisil 2019). It is unlikely that accommodation in Belfast City Centre would happen without fragmentation outside of it – i.e. homogenous Catholic/Protestant areas – since such divisions create a sense of security that allows for ‘bringing people together’ elsewhere (interview with NIHE official 16 September 2015, Belfast; see also Mitchell 2011). Passive acceptance of co-presence in parts of Mostar is likewise what allows MRS to be an anti-ethnonationalist organization amongst those who disagree with them (interview with leader 19 August 2014, Mostar).

A last remark is that urban peace is incipient conceptual work, which needs to be continued and concretized. As I have developed rather than employed urban peace, future research could explore whether the postwar city’s envisioned constructive potential holds, to what extent, and what affects it. Future research could also explore how creativity, accommodation, and fragmentation can be best utilized to generate coexistence between peace(s); how more minimal forms of coexistence between peace(s) can be developed; and how the postwar city’s destructive face can be escaped. It is lastly important to explore whether coexistence between peace(s) in postwar cities can spread. Many things which shape the world either concentrate to cities or are urban phenomena. What happens in cities is therefore ‘destined to spill over the rest of society’ (Bauman 2003, 38). This makes it highly relevant to explore if also coexistence between peace(s) in postwar cities can.

Acknowledgements

The biggest thanks go – as always – to those who shared insights in Belfast, Mitrovica, and Mostar. I also wish to thank those who have commented on earlier drafts: Annika Björkdahl, Christine Bell, Emma Elfversson, Kristine Höglund, Susanne Buckley-Zistel, Ted Svensson, the journal editors, and the anonymous reviewers. The last thanks goes to Johanna Mannergren Selimovic, whose readings always elevate my texts way beyond what I could manage on my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council under Grant 2019-02563 and Grant 2019-03870, The Crafoord Foundation, The Helge Ax:son Johnson Foundation, The Karl Staaf Foundation, The Lars Hierta Memorial Foundation, and The Åke Wiberg Foundation.

Notes on contributors

Ivan Gusic

Ivan Gusic is Researcher at the Department of Global Political Studies at Malmö University, Assistant Professor at the Department of Government at Uppsala University, and Associate Research Fellow at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs. Ivan’s research interests include war-to-peace transitions; postwar cities; urban peacebuilding; and the spatiality of war, peace, and violence. Ivan currently leads two research projects: The Continuation of Conflict-Related Violence in Postwar Cities: Mapping Violence at the Street Level (together with Emma Elfversson, Uppsala University) and An Urban Peace? Exploring the Postwar City’s Constructive Ability in Peacebuilding.

Notes

1 I often use “peace(s)” without the accompanying “antagonists”. This is to avoid repetition, not a suggestion that peace(s) are void of actors. Peace(s) are always underpinned by actors who prefer, advance, and/or contest them.

2 Socio-political ordering refers to the organization – broadly speaking – of any given entity. It encompasses everything from jurisprudence and norms to security structures and the economy (see Gusic 2019a).

3 The arguments are not that the city’s potential is limited per se, but the actual conceptualizing exploring this potential is.

4 “Elements” depict everything within in the city – e.g. people, groups, security forces, services, locations, and norms. I use the term to avoid repeating an almost indefinite list.

5 Given the tensions in postwar cities, these snapshots additionally depict constructive cracks in largely destructive façades.

6 The Serb security services and city administrations are undergoing contested integration processes into the Kosovar system.