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Violent chronic conflicts, uprooting, and the continuous massive (re)generation of displacement waves constitute the main elements of the Kurds’ history within nation-states’ (changing) geographies. Today, Kurdish-inhabited territories represent palimpsests of involuntary dislocations and relocation stories, constantly (re)written by refuge-seeking/ granting (spatial) practices. Since 2011, contemporary uprisings and wars in Syria and Iraq have inscribed the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KR-I) territories with a new layer of displacement stories. These territories acted as frontline receptors for consecutive Syrian refugees and Iraqi internally displaced waves seeking protection. Displacees found refuge in the rural, urban and newly set humanitarian camps’ spaces; hence, they (temporarily) anchored and carved some sort of a presence within their receiving sites. The rationale behind such receiving sites' emergence, use and progression in the KR-I have historically oscillated between modernization, discipline, development and humanitarianism.
Guided by the urbanism lens, this research aims to narrate the KR-I’s forced displacement territorial biography of involuntary dislocated and (re)located Kurds. This narration chronologically traces these groups' newly (re)shaped receiving sites and how refuge-seeking/granting practices aggregated and (re) articulated the KR-I’s territories. It investigates the ways in which these receiving sites act as seeds of emerging urbanities in such a politically contested region. On the one hand, the research zooms out and repositions these sites' emergence and spatial progression within a broader geopolitical context, socioeconomic conditionalities, uses and meaning subversions due to the ever-changing actors. On the other hand, it zooms closely into the newly set Syrian-Kurdish refugee camps in the KR-I within and beyond predefined (nation-state) belongings in their ever-distorted time-space frames. It securitizes on the ways in which these sites are conceived and inhabited to (re)claim rights “to” and “in” space, territory, history and future. Between the large and small pictures, the research investigates the human and the non-human spatial agency that (re)patches these ruptured Kurds' collective memories and contemporary narratives of where, when, what and with whom (a future) home rests.
This study is an urgent call for the international and local constellation of actors to critically rethink their standardized ready-made solutions and piece-meal spatial interventions in geographies associated with chronic crisis, ever (re)branded under emergency, development and peace ‘help’ banners. It sets the basis for rearticulating and developing further research-based interventions that account for exhausted conflict-ridden (infra)structures, political sensitivities, socio-economic situations and environmental impacts.
The old city core experienced a long series of modernization process that affected the old urban fabric and the coherence among urban elements. This dissertation tried to explore the intervention methods and the variety of impacts that have been occurred inside the old core . New streets that were added to the city changed the urban space hierarchy in each time. Starting from analyzing the spatial form via exploring the morphology of the city up to analyze the city skyline is the main methodology of this work. The spatial form of the city of Baghdad shows the impacts of multi planning approaches belong to variant master plans which were proposed and achieved to manage the city growth and development. Those impacts were varied and explained in this dissertation based on the change in the city network, city expansion and land use distribution. The old city of Baghdad was analyzed and explained in details in term of investigating the morphological layers for different periods showing the development of Baghdad urban structure by new comparative plans that explain the change between two following morphological periods. The understanding of the transformation in each morphological period was based on the following criteria’s (urban growth, urban space development, urban components and innovations) to provide a comprehensive investigation about the behavior of the urban components. The investigation of the main old and new streets was well assessed showing their structure, building typologies and the role of the urban space typologies along the segments of those streets. The transect analysis method was used by having nine sections through the old city in different areas to understand the transformation in the city of Baghdad and the impacts of the unregulated development process accompanied within the lack of clear urban management method. The development of the city skyline provided a clear interpretation about the impacts of inserting new urban space and building typologies inside the old core. It was so clear that the hypothesis of this dissertation was proved in showing the role of the street hierarchy change (for both pedestrian and car street in different segments) in exploring the mechanism of the conflict among urban components that bring more destruction to the city. The conclusion showed what to avoid in any prospective rehabilitation process and gave the impacts of the previous interventions that shoud not be repeated in the future.