Examining planning and construction as part of warfare: brownbag seminar by Deen Sharp

This talk explores how urban conflict is shaped not only by destruction but also by practices of construction and planning. While scholarship in urban studies has highlighted the militarisation of cities (Graham 2010; Weizman 2011), most analyses continue to focus on visible damage and demolition. Drawing on my edited volumes Open Gaza and Reconstruction as Violence in Assad’s Syria, I argue for greater attention to how warfare operates through discriminatory planning, restrictions on materials such as concrete, surveillance systems, mobility controls, and the building of infrastructure and logistical networks.

This is not to suggest that all planning is warfare. Distinguishing between, for example, mobility restrictions in the United Kingdom and those imposed in Palestine is crucial. Instead, examining planning and construction as part of warfare allows us to identify specific mechanisms through which conflict urbanises, recognise when similar techniques appear elsewhere, and clarify what separates urban conflict from other forms of urban violence.

• WHEN: Friday, 29 August 2025
• TIME: 12:30 – 13:30
• VENUE: Studio 3, Environmental and Geographical Sciences Building, Upper Campus, University of Cape Town
• EMAIL: Tselane.moiloa@uct.ac.za for enquiries

About the speaker:

Deen Sharp is an LSE Visiting Fellow in Human Geography and Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science and an Urban Resilience Advisor for the United Nations Environment Program. He was previously a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the co-director of Terreform, Center for Advanced Urban Research. Sharp is the co-editor with Claire Panetta of Beyond the Square: Urbanism and the Arab Uprisings (Urban Research, 2016) and co-editor with Michael Sorkin Open Gaza: Architectures of Hope (Terreform and American University in Cairo Press, 2021). He has also published in Progress in Human Geography, Urban Studies and The Journal of Architecture.