Instituting Hayat: Disruptive Care and Stasis Urbanism in Famagusta

This research proposes a generative alignment between spatial practices and urban activism in postcolonial and post-conflict cities which suffer from what I identify as urban stasis. Urban stasis is grounded in my situated analysis of territorial hegemony institutionalised within the infrastructures of power in Famagusta, Cyprus. Through activist research, I claimed a counter-hegemonic positioning by activating multiple roles: researcher, urban activist, and architect. This study leverages an embedded collaborative spatial practice and urban activism to explore the question: How can grassroots urban activism and spatial practices align themselves to counter the authoritarian and capital-driven production of space in contested cities, such as Famagusta, Cyprus?

Three ‘thick’ stories document my transversal engagements with grassroots urban activism and cross-border spatial practice, yielding southern, decolonial and feminist insights for theory and praxis.