Powering Divided Cities: Urban Energy Systems between Separation and Cooperation (DiviCiti)

• Applicant: Professor Timothy Moss, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Human Geography
• Term: from 2020 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 429443512

This project studies past and present cases of politically divided cities to reveal how energy infrastructures - understood as socio-technical configurations - can reinforce separation or promote cooperation in contested urban contexts. It combines historical with contemporary analysis from a primarily human geography perspective to explore the complex relationship between urban infrastructures, energy security and urban conflict. The purpose of this venture is four-fold. First, the project demonstrates how political conflict has manifested itself in the structures and processes involved in producing, providing and using electricity and gas in three iconic divided cities: Berlin, Jerusalem and Nicosia. Second, it analyses how energy infrastructures have been enrolled in the urban resilience strategies of these cities, whether to increase isolationist self-dependence or cooperative inter-dependence. Third, it generates from the case comparison knowledge on the relationship between geopolitical conflict and energy security in urban contexts as a contribution to theory-building at the interface of urban studies, energy studies and peace studies. Finally, the project deepens research collaboration and strengthens institutional ties between the German and Israeli partners at the Humboldt University of Berlin (HUB) and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (HUJI). It will initiate the establishment of a joint research centre at HUJI dedicated to studying the relationship between urban conflict and energy geopolitics. The work programme comprises six work packages. 1) The first work package (Concepts) assesses three pertinent strands of scholarly debate - on urban infrastructures, energy security and urban conflict - with respect to their value and synergies in pursuing the project’s objectives. 2) The second work package (Manifestations) explores the manifestations of political division in the energy infrastructures of the three selected cities - Berlin, Jerusalem and Nicosia - since 1948, respectively 1974. 3) The third work package (Strategies) investigates the strategies of socio-technical resilience developed in the three cities from division up until the present day. 4) The fourth work package (Agency) analyses the role of energy infrastructures in the three cities as instruments of conflict or of cooperation. 5) The fifth work package (Trajectories) compares the cases and interprets the findings in terms of their socio-technical pathways. 6) The sixth work package (Implications) draws conclusions from the project for theory-building on the relationship between urban governance, energy security and geopolitics and for future urban energy policy in the three cities. It will also prepare for a follow-up project to study a much larger global sample of divided cities.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Israel
• International Co-Applicant: Professor Dr. Itay Fischhendler