Barely anyone living in Vienna remains unfamiliar with the narrative that the city affords a comfortable lifestyle. Public transportation, cleanliness, and medical care are said to contribute to that liveable life one allegedly has in Vienna. International indexes affirm this image by placing Vienna at the top of the list of most liveable cities worldwide.

Among the many factors shaping this portrayal, housing plays a particularly distinctive role. Housing policies build on the legacy of interwar social democracy and municipal housing remains a prominent landmark across the city. This lecture posits the »livability apparatus« as emerging from an interplay between discourse and institutions. This apparatus establishes the truth of Vienna’s livability as an uncontested value, prompting public institutions to act in ways that preserve the image and maintain the city’s international reputation. The lecture shows that the workings of the apparatus depoliticize the issues at stake and conceal the primacy of economic development in livability issues. By situating the apparatus within interurban competition and analyzing selected housing policies, the question is whom this »livability« serves.

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.

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.

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.

The animation highlights the worst forms of child labour as recognized by the ILO, depicting children working at night in oriental tobacco fields in western Türkiye.