Urban governance of the displaced and emergency rules

This article situates the growing importance of cities in migrant and refugee emplacement within the mutations and contestations of neoliberal urbanism and shifting forms of state power under the changing conjuncture of neoliberal capitalism. Drawing on ethnographic research on temporary protection regime for displaced Ukrainians in Vienna and extractive reconstruction following urban warfare in Nusaybin it examines how governing the displaced through top-down emergency laws and regulations has become a key arena for reshaping urban and state power. It explores the tensions between municipal and central authorities to scrutinize the ambiguous role of urban governments and the ways in which the governance of displacement is mobilized to establish new urban orders with particular attention to the increasing involvement and control of state authority. The article highlights how racialized hierarchies and ethnicity are entangled with the expansion of authoritarian rule in governing the cities and the displaced of populations.