September 25, 2009
Cities and the New Wars

Time Friday, 1:00 pm
Type Conference
Location Avery Hall, Wood Auditorium, Columbia University


The conference addresses two major subjects:

The multiple meanings of the new urban wars: asymmetric armed conflict, US Army training for the "urban enemy," forms of economic violence that kill, cities and urban space as a technology for war, reapropriating the city of fear, civil war refugees and their flight from and to cities, measuring human rights violations during war.

The limits of power and of war: the role of the civic, war and law, the growing global web of interdependencies -- all can contest the most powerful states and all can undermine the idea of victory in war. Conditions under which powerlessness becomes complex and transcends mere victimhood.