Speakers
Description
For a long time, urban studies on migration have relied on binary distinctions such as formal/informal, local/outsider, ‘host’ communities/‘incoming’ migrants, inclusion/exclusion, norm/exception, and emergency/ordinariness. Among these, the polarized contrast between permanence and temporariness stands out: permanence is often regarded as the condition to aspire to, while temporariness is seen as provisional or exceptional (Latham, 2014).
In recent decades, the widespread presence of populations ‘on the move,’ in transit, and displaced has challenged the idea of migration as a linear process leading to long-term settlement and integration (Meeus et al., 2019). As migratory movements intersect with broader urban dynamics, a wider range of populations experience in-between living conditions (Simone, 2020; Landau, 2022). Reflecting this shift, urban studies have increasingly explored migration's more nuanced spatialities and temporalities, introducing concepts such as ‘provisional permanence’ and ‘protracted temporariness.’ In this context, we use the term urbanism in-between to capture the heterogeneous and contested process of city-making shaped by populations ‘on the move’, alongside other residents, as they navigate the space and time between permanence and temporariness in their everyday lives.
Despite growing cross-disciplinary interest in the concept, in-between city-making practices remain difficult to grasp in relation to spatial transformations and through the conventional lenses of urban planning. A discipline that typically assumes permanent arrangements and stable populations, prioritizing permanence over temporariness (Fawaz, 2017; Landau, 2022). Often, the protracted temporariness of migrant populations has been associated with temporary architecture and spaces or extraordinary planning measures, rather than seen as part of the transformation of ‘ordinary’ urban areas and planning tools.
In this contribution, we explore the relationship between in-between living, city-making practices, and urban space through spatialized ethnographic vignettes and maps of two ‘transit cities’, Istanbul and Palermo, situated at the threshold between Europe, the Middle East, and Northern Africa. At the urban scale, the everyday practices of landing migrants (Bovo, 2024), balancing between the unviability of settling down and the hardship of moving on, shape alternative geographies of social infrastructures and services. At the neighborhood level, the protracted temporariness (Pasta, 2025) of certain urban areas becomes a defining feature, affecting both ‘temporary’ migrants and processes of urban change. On a micro-scale, urban spaces are continuously reshaped and re-signified by those experiencing these in-between conditions.
References
References
Bovo, M. (2024). Migration Landing Spaces. Processes and Infrastructures in Italy. Routledge.
Fawaz, M. (2017). “Planning and the refugee crisis: Informality as a framework of analysis and reflection. In Planning Theory 16, 99–115.
Landau, L. (2022). “Governing displaced cities. Calibrating reconstruction amidst instability”. In H. al-Ḥāriṯī (Ed.), Urban recovery: Intersecting displacement with post war reconstruction. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.
Latham, R. (2014) “Temporal orders, re-collective justice, and the making of untimely states,” in Vosko, L.F., Preston, V., and Latham, R. (eds.) Liberating Temporariness?: Migration, work, and citizenship in an age of insecurity, 272–295. McGill-Queen’s Univeristy Press.
Meeus, B., Arnaut. K., and Van Heur, B. (2019) Arrival Infrastructures. Migration and Urban Social Mobilities. Palgrave Macmillan
Pasta, F. (2025). On the fault line. Inhabiting extended transiency in Fikirtepe, Istanbul. Unpublished PhD thesis, Politecnico di Milano.
Simone, A. (2020). “To extend: Temporariness in a world of itineraries”. In Urban Studies 57, 1127–1142.
| Keywords | migration; urbanism; temporariness; protracted displacement |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | Yes |
