5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

Mobility is an intrinsic part of the growth and development of cities worldwide, however, the role of displaced communities and non-humans in city-making requires further exploration. This panel invites contributions that explore the role of displaced communities (refugees, asylum seekers, migrants, etc.), and non-humans (desert, sea and plantation) in making new active urban and peri-urban dynamics. In this panel we ask: what is the role and agency of displaced communities and non-humans in opening up unchartered possibilities? Over the past year, the foundations of what constitutes justice and the city has been massively put to test with yet another Nakba broadcasted live in Gaza. War in Sudan, Lebanon and Yemen, massive migration from earthquakes in Morocco to the drowning of entire settlements in Libya, to the disruption of deserts and marine ecology, demolition of heritage to make way for speculative architectures such as the New Administrative Capital in Cairo, The Line and Red Sea Maldives in Saudi Arabia, all bring to question the contradicting realities of planning, where displacement is the ultimate common denominator of the future city. This panel invites scholars working on displacement to capture its agency, social formations, human and non-human actants and their relational geographies to rethink the otherwise of planning. Contributions can include historical/contemporary mapping, storytelling, graphic representations, archival work and/or ethnographic research on power, settler colonialism, ecological disruptions, neoliberal restructuring, new city-projects, mega-developments, expansive infrastructure and transformative landscapes to elucidate how the displaced move, mobilize and reassemble new realities on the ground.