Liminal urbanisation: Undoing interior settler colonialism through the disruption of urban homogeneity Goran Ivo Marinovic American University of Beirut, Maroon Semaan Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, School of Architecture and Design, Lebanon A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Budva since 1979 Montenegro Informal neighbourhoods Working-class and forced immigrants Multi-sited ethnography Manichaeism urbanisation ABSTRACT In Mediterranean cities, settler colonial urbanisation operates through spatial homogenisation that transforms difference into otherness. Since 1979, in Budva, Montenegro, low-income working-class and forced migrants have confronted settler colonial urban practices—a system wherein established residents leverage local identity and political power to exclude newcomers. Interior settler colonialism constitutes a mode of domination char- acterised by the aspiration of an established collective to expel immigrants from the city. Rather than merely enduring displacement, these communities transform their marginalisation into resistance through what I term “liminal urbanisation.” Through inhabiting interstitial spaces, physically marginal neighbourhoods challenge the Manichean divisions between “legitimate” residents and “others.” These traced spatial, cultural, and social heterogeneities transcend the dualistic worldview of Manichean urbanisation—a political construct wherein privileged citizens, defined by local identity, economic stability, and political empowerment, assert their au- thority to govern urban territories at the expense of marginalised groups. Drawing upon multi-sited ethnography, which encompasses qualitative observation in immigrant settlements, neighbourhood mapping, household in- terviews, archival analysis of planning documents and policy frameworks, and mapping of spatial trans- formations, I trace how immigrants strategically contested their socio-political invisibility. The concluding analysis contributes to urban theory by demonstrating how liminal urbanisation reveals pathways for decolo- nising Mediterranean cities through participatory planning, cultural integration initiatives, and structural re- forms that recognise immigrants as legitimate city-makers rather than temporary labourers. Introduction: The Expansion of Settler Colonial Theory Mediterranean cities increasingly exhibit patterns of urban exclusion wherein established residents systematically marginalise immigrant communities through spatial, economic, and political means. This article examines how immigrant communities in Budva, Montenegro, transform their marginal position into sites of resistance through what I term “liminal urbanisation”—the strategic occupation of concealed neighbourhoods that challenges binary divisions between legitimate residents and excluded others. Liminal urbanisation generates subaltern districts characterised by informal dwellings, cultural differences, and social diversity (Dale & Burrell, 2008), fostering democratic practices and political participation whilst opposing mainstream urbanisation (Rocco & Van Ballegooijen, 2019). This perspective reveals how urban homogeneity emerges when cities are deliberately configured by local- born population elites who construct exclusive residential zones whilst systematically excluding non-native populations. While scholarship on urban marginalisation has focused predominantly on Western contexts (Chimni, 2009), the Mediterranean presents unique dynamics of interior settler colonialism through embedded histories of migration, tourism development, and local identity politics. Interior settler colonialism occurs when established populations within a nation-state employ the settler colonial mechanism of elimi- nation, replacement, and territorial reorganisation against internal others, particularly immigrants (Veracini, 2018). Unlike classical settler colonialism, where external settlers displace indigenous populations, interior settler colonialism sees local majorities positioning themselves as the sole legitimate inhabitants whilst systematically erasing the presence and claims of newer arrivals. This framework builds upon recent scholarship that expands settler colonial analysis beyond its traditional contexts (Blomley, 2004; Porter & Yiftachel, 2019; Porter et al., 2021), whilst addressing the specific dynamics of post-socialist Mediterranean urbanisation. For readers unfamiliar with Montenegro, Budva represents a microcosm of broader Mediterranean dynamics where tourism pros- perity depends upon, yet conceals, immigrant labour. Located on E-mail address: gm59@aub.edu.lb. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Research in Globalization journal homepage: www.sciencedirect.com/journal/research-in-globalization https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resglo.2025.100296 Received 4 February 2025; Received in revised form 22 June 2025; Accepted 24 June 2025 Research in Globalization 11 (2025) 100296 Available online 30 June 2025 2590-051X/© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).