Ayse Çağlar
Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology
City-making
Political economy of displacement
Capital and urban restructuring
Extractivism
Governance of the displaced
Rescaling of states
Connect:
ayse.caglar@univie.ac.atBio
I am an anthropologist and sociologist and my work has been broadly concentrated on the political economy of displacement and cities. I have examined and published extensively on how the dynamics of displacement, dispossession, and the displaced (migrants, refugees, undocumented, Internally Displaced People) shaped city-making. A global and multiscalar lens beyond methodological nationalism and the related ethnic lens characterized my research. I addressed the dynamics of transnational migration, the location of the states in these processes, and the interface between capital and urban restructuring in rescaling states, cities, and the location of migrants. A focus on citizenship established an important aspect of this work where I scrutinized the pluralization of citizenship regimes and particularly the sites and scales of contentious politics of citizenship. My recent work in this area explored the colonial lineages of nation-states, citizenship, labor, and bordering regimes in relation to the changing forms of accumulation. In my recent work, I explore how cities emerged not only as frontiers of value, but also as key arena through which autocratic encroachments are acted out in a tenuous relationship between states and financial and humanitarian institutions. Shifting dynamics of urban governance, recentralization of state power and statehood, the rise of illiberal urban city-making and governance, as well as the erosion of international protection regimes establish its pillars. Most of my scholarship had been comparative, but recently I advanced my relational comparative work to a more historically informed longue durée perspective. I explicate the continuities and ruptures in regimes of confined labor and containment in the governance of the displaced and city-making since WWII in two European cities through the lens of expanded extractivism. The effort to capture and theorize the changing relations between state, labor and capital in the political economy of displacement could be identified as the thread connecting my scholarship altogether.
Fellowships, Grants, and Awards
Publications
Publications
Books
Locating Migration: Rescaling Cities and Migrants
Migrants and City-Making: Dispossession, Displacement and Urban Regeneration
Sites of Statelessness: Laws, Cities, Seas
Selected publications
- Un/making protection: EU temporary protection and the governance of the Ukrainian displaced in Vienna in a global perspective - Journal Article
- Extractivist governance of the displaced and their containment: rethinking state, capital, and labor - Journal Article
In: Special Issue on Situating the Migration Industry: Governance, Capital Accumulation and Global Dehumanization edited by Glick Schiller, N. & Triandafyllidou, A.
- Urban governance of the displaced and emergency rules - Journal Article
Digitised Migration: Entangled and Uneven Landscapes - Special Issue- Expanded extractivism, confinement, and (im)mobilized labor in city-making: a longue durée perspective - Journal Article
- Looking through the lens of “essential workers”: a landscape of (im)mobility, labor, and social reproduction - Journal Article
- Introduction: Looking at warfare through the lens of accumulation: extraction and historical conjuncture - Journal Article
In: Special Issue on Situating Global Warfare in Historical Conjuncture (Theme Section), co-edited with Yüksel-Pecen, S.
- Citizenship beyond solidarity and belonging: Commoning and sociability - Journal Article
Invited Commentary
- Making the convert speak: The production of truth and the ‘apparatus of conversion’ in Austria
In: Asylum and Conversion to Christianity in Europe: Interdisciplinary Approaches, edited by Öztürk, E., & Rose L.
- Reorganization of Borders and (Im)Mobility: Labor and the Coloniality of Power - Newspaper Article
In: IWMpost 131: Migration, Displacement, and Governance (Spring/Summer)
- Relational Multiscalar Analysis: A Comparative Approach to Migrants within City-Making Processes - Book Chapter
In: Cities, Migration, and Governance Beyond Scales and Levels, edited by Hillmann F., and Samers M.
- Situating the “cultural reach” of cities in a multiscalar field - Journal Article
Other Media
- On migration, displacement, and urban transformation
In this episode (season 4, episode 4) of the Borders and Belonging podcast series at the CERC in Migration and Integration, Ayşe Çağlar shares how her experiences growing up in Turkey and living in multiple countries shaped her approach to using migrants as an entry point to explore how societies define themselves, draw boundaries, and govern communities. She is joined by Ana Ćuković, whose research looks at how displacement unfolds in cities, including Detroit through urban planning and policy, and how historical and economic contexts shape who is included or pushed out of cities.
- City-making through the Lens of Displacement
This SCAS Talks episode features Ayşe Çağlar, discussing cities through the lens of displacement. Caglar challenges the binary of “migrant” vs. “non-migrant,” arguing that displacement affects diverse populations, not just migrants. She emphasizes the importance of understanding how place and time shape experiences of migration, highlighting the limitations of solely focusing on mobility. Caglar’s research uses the concept of displacement to connect varied groups experiencing dislocation and dispossession within cities. She examines the contributions of migrants to city-making, underscoring their role in generating wealth and power, while also recognizing the simultaneous struggles for resources and justice they face. The discussion extends to her ongoing SCAS project investigating the historical and political geographies of cities, focusing on Linz and Essen.
- Sites of Statelessness – Laws, Cities, Seas
The co-editors Ayşe Çağlar, Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury, and Ranabir Samaddar discussed their book Sites of Statelessness: Laws, Cities, Seas (SUNY Press, 2024) in conversation with Paolo Novak and Yuri Kazepov. The discussion was moderated by Ayşe Çağlar.
Statelessness is incessantly produced in seas, cities, and law. Building around the postcolonial experiences of this statelessness, the book examines the entanglements of citizenship policies and practices with the spread of statelessness in contemporary times, something that defies any kind of citizen/stateless binary.
Talks and Events
Past
Roundtable on Mutations of Urbanism: Illiberal cities and what to do about them - Organizer
Jul 2026
Vienna, Austria
co-organized with Jeff Maskovsky
RC21 Urban and Regional Development Conference: Ineuqalities and the City
University of Vienna
Architectures of containment and governance: displacement, extractivism, and city-making (1/2) - Convenor
Jul 2026
Vienna, Austria
co-organized with Paolo Novak
RC21 Urban and Regional Development Conference: Ineuqalities and the City
University of Vienna
Architectures of containment and governance: displacement, extractivism, and city-making (2/2) - Convenor
Jul 2026
Vienna, Austria
co-organized with Paolo Novak
RC21 Urban and Regional Development Conference: Ineuqalities and the City
University of Vienna
Workshop on (Un)Chaining Disasters: Materials, Work, and the Everyday of Re-Configuration - Organizer
Jun 2026
Kobe, Japan
The workshop invites case studies that examine supply chains, forms of work, and human experiences affected by disruptions such as wars and armed conflicts, industrial accidents, earthquakes, storms, wildfires, large-scale infrastructure failures, and other events involving material destruction and displacement.
Kobe University
Workshop on Spaces and Traces of Containment: Architectures of Extractivism - Organizer
Dec 2025
Vienna, Austria
Migrants and Urban Politics: Governing the Displaced and Cities, IWM
Expanded Extractivism: Regimes of Confined Labour, Containment, and the Geographies of Displacement - Speaker
Nov 2025
Illinois, USA
Anthropology Department and Keyman Centre for Turkish Studies, Northwestern University
Extractivism Expanded: Confined Labor, Regimes of Containment, and City-making - Speaker
Nov 2025
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Migration, Mobilities, and Social Politics Research Cluster, University of Balsillie School of International Affairs
Financialization, Extractivism, and the Governance of Migration - Convenor
Oct 2025
Toronto, Canada
Scholars of Excellence Workshop
The Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration, Toronto Metropolitan University
“Governing the displaced in cities: The rule of “emergency”, Janus Face of Mayors’ power, autocratic reconfiguration of state power - Speaker
Apr 2025
Vancouver, Canada
Special Session: Cities That Defy Their Nations, International Conference on Urban Affairs
Changing landscapes of urban governance: the displaced and the states - Keynote speaker
Jan 2025
Brussels, Belgium
Conference on Sharing insights and joining forces for rebuilding Europe’s migration society
National Library of Belgium
Workshop on Continuities and Ruptures in Forced Migration: The Politics of Labour, Power and Representations - Organizer
Oct 2024
Vienna, Austria
Europe-Asia Research Platform on Forced Migration, IWM
Governing cities and governing the displaced: Mayors, ‘emergency rule’, and urban politics - Speaker
Sep 2024
Malmö, Sweden
The International Migration and Ethnic Relations (IMER), Malmö University
IWM Spring Fellows’ Conference 2024 - Organizer
May 2024
Vienna, Austria
IWM
Political economy of Containment industries: Confinement and (im)mobilized labor in the making of Linz - Participant
Apr 2024
Toronto, Canada
Scholars of Excellence Workshop on the “integration business”: A radical critique on migration, development and reception services
The Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration, Toronto Metropolitan University
The Longue Durée of Extractivism, Confinement, and (im)mobilized Labor in City- making in Linz - Presenter
Apr 2024
Honolulu, Hawaii
American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting
Governing the displaced in cities: Wars, the rule of “emergency”, and extraction - Keynote speaker
Nov 2023
Kolkata, India
Calcutta Research Group’s 8th Annual Conference
Calcutta Research Group (CRG)
Expanded extractivism, confinement, and (im)mobilized labor in city-making - Speaker
Nov 2023
Toronto, Canada
American Anthropological Association/Canadian Anthropology Society Annual Conference
Shifting contours of urban governance: an intriguing landscape beyond decentralization? - Speaker
Sep 2023
New York, USA
Migration, Urban Governance, and Restructuring in the Context of Recentralizing Neoliberalism
New School for Social Research
Cities and Human Mobility Research Collaborative Vienna Research Symposium - Organizer
Mar 2023
Vienna, Austria
Europe-Asia Research Platform on Forced Migration, IWM & Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility
“Arrival” Infrastructures of the Displaced from Ukraine in Vienna - Organizer
Feb 2023
Vienna, Austria
Europe-Asia Research Platform on Forced Migration, IWM