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Properties of War: The Militarization of Housing Policy and Urban Planning in Contemporary Azerbaijan
Zsuzsanna Dominika Ihar
University of Cambridge
Abstract
War has defined Azerbaijan for more than three decades. The unresolved conflict over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh has not only structured the sociopolitical climate of the nation but also everyday relations and the very manner in which both the private home and the homeland is imagined. Increasingly, the line has blurred between housing policy and military strategy, with desires for greater securitization and armament seeping into proprietary arrangements, construction plans, and mainstream narratives surrounding the domestic. I examine three sites where inhabitation has seemingly become inextricable from the military apparatus — a state-sponsored apartment block for the families of martyrs (şəhid ailəsi) and those disabled by war (müharibə əlillərinə), a newly built housing complex for servicemen (yüksək rütbəli hərbçilər), and, finally, a makeshift settlement for internally displaced people (məcburi köçkünlər). In these spaces, both temporal and material qualities of war seep into the quotidian, informing the ways in which individuals negotiate the intimate aftermaths of violence, injury, and severed relation. Whilst the article begins by examining state-sponsored settlement forged along lines of allegiance, masculinized duty, and capacity, it concludes by attending to moments that upend oppressive forms of homemaking.
Keywords
militarism, housing policy, nationalism, urban planning, Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh
Introduction
An atmosphere of fervent militarism saturates spaces of everyday life within Baku, Azerbaijan. Despite being nearly four hundred kilometers away from the contested territories of Nagorno-Karabakh, military presence and paraphernalia proliferate across public and private space within the capital city—from military supply trucks stationed in downtown parking lots, army recruitment ads towering above commuters in metro stations, to creaseless Azerbaijani flags decorating courtyards and gardens. Framed by the ongoing conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia (1987 to present day), residential developments (yaşayış məntəqəsi), gardens/backyards (yaşıl sahələr), and makeshift settlements (müvəqqəti məskunlaşma) have turned into sites where the local population actively engages with ideas of nation-making, post-conflict futures, and the potential restoration of territorial integrity (Askerov 2020). Feelings of both homeliness and unhomeliness pervade these spaces, with potent affective landscapes influencing political identity, forms of inhabitation, and everyday habits. Whilst traditional conflict zones and military fronts remain, this article will argue that the interior...