Advanced Topics in Anthropology (Half-Term): Colonial Urbicide & Hyperprecarity: The Case of Jerusalem

The notion of urbicide, the intended destruction of a city, its cultural heritage, and its built space, became increasingly prevalent after the Yugoslav wars of succession. In this course, we draw on the concepts of urbicide and what Hammami (2016) terms hyperprecarity to consider the case of Jerusalem, where settler colonial processes of 'sacralized and securitized preservation' entail remaking and rebuilding built space to rewrite past and future and destroying to replace.