DECOLONIZING POST-WAR URBANISM: HERITAGE-LED RECOVERY MODELS IN OCCUPIED CONTEXTS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22159/ijss.2026v14i2.56185Keywords:
Decolonial urbanism, cultural heritage, post-conflict recovery, spatial resistance, occupied cities, indigenous planningAbstract
Rebuilding of urban areas after the war has cured top-down, neoliberal development paradigms, which are normally oriented toward infrastructure, but in fact ignore cultural continuity. Such approaches have a profound impact on the character of a city and the lives of its inhabitants. In cases of long-lasting occupation – such as Palestine – the situation is even more complicated: A heritage issue can become a major battleground where colonial pasts are kept alive through new planning policies. This article is a critique of one-sided reconstruction schemes viewed from a decolonial perspective, and it puts forward a heritage-driven recovery that places the local people’s spatial stories at the core. First, the authors make a comparison between the cases from Sarajevo and Beirut, which serve as examples of heritage being a form of spatial resistance and the continuous survival of the culture. Second, by referring to the critical urban theory and the decolonial scholarship, the paper sets up a theoretical framework for culturally responsive reconstruction in the occupied urban contexts. The research data show that heritage-led recovery, should community participation and historical continuity be present, we will be able to resist elimination of the past and make a generous contribution to urban futures that are more just.
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