OCCUPATION URBICIDE: URBAN EXPERIENCE AND EVERYDAY PRACTICES OF THE POPULATION (A CASE OF KHERSON, UKRAINE)

Abstract

Wars, occupation regimes, and all other forms of political violence have a multidimensional and singular impact on all aspects of human life. In the spatial and temporal dimension, cities are always the primary targets of military interventions. The concept of urbicide as a specific violent policy against cities identifies direct or indirect destructive consequences for the physical and spatial structure of the city, urban experience, and urban identity. The article analyzes the changes in the functioning of Kherson and the everyday practices of its population aimed at surviving the occupation. It is determined that during the occupation, one of the «soft» scenarios of indirect urbicide was applied to the city with selective terror of the population and economic decline of the city. The post-occupation urbicide has all the signs of a more severe model of direct urbicide due to the constant shelling of the city, numerous damages to infrastructure, and further deterioration of the demographic structure and psycho-emotional state of the city's residents. The coexistence of citizens with the occupiers has been identified as one of the key challenges: 1) the militarization of urban space and a widespread sense of disenfranchisement with blatant human rights violations; 2) the absence of humanitarian aid deliveries, the cessation of local business, the banking system, and the introduction of the Russian ruble; 3) the elimination of access to Ukrainian communications and media, the occupation of the information space, and the transformation of urban identity; 4) the massive departure of the population from the occupied city. The study summarizes the strategies of the population's response to the challenges of wartime and the occupation regime. Under the influence of the restrictions of the military occupation regime, the city's population has actualized and developed specific security, adaptation, altruistic, communication and infrastructure everyday practices. In the active phase of hostilities during russia's current large-scale military intervention, this transformation of everyday practices has become the basis for mechanisms of survival, moral and civil resistance.