Paper short abstract:

I study a militarised setting built upon a series of displacements while being imbued with a reactionary phantasmatic quality. With a focus on how control over land is crafted by sovereign technologies, I map a domain of politics that is marked by affective and spectral claims to sovereignty.

Paper long abstract:

This paper comprises two interlinked sections on the city where I conducted my fieldwork. I argue, in the first section, that the urban space in question defeats clear-cut ideological categorisations, for the militarised landscape is built upon a series of displacements as well as being imbued with a reactionary phantasmatic quality. Secondly, I focus on the ways in which armed violence has transformed the landscape in question by following the inscription of the markers of different sovereign claims onto the urban layout. Building up on the literature on territorial sovereignty, which critically informs us about the material ways in which control over land is crafted by the technologies of sovereign states, I turn to guerrilla funerals, funeral houses, 'terrorist' flower arrangements, and a pool-map of Kurdistan to mark a domain of politics, which constitutes an affectively imbued spectral claim to sovereignty with material effects.