The loss was commonplace in Aleppo during the recent war. This paper explores how various groups at the front lines in East Aleppo sought to preserve heritage to reconstruct it after the war. I argue that these individuals were exposed to existential fear. Their efforts to localize grief and loss imagined the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the old city of Aleppo as an eternal object that preceded their human life span. In exile, their attitudes diverted toward this legacy.

Using memes, maps, and audio collages, we discuss the politics of giving and its impact on urban development in the city of Heilbronn. Focusing on the activities of one powerful philanthropist, the perspectives of local residents reveal ambivalent interpretations of recent urban developments. While acknowledging the new opportunities and dynamics offered by philanthropy, they also raise concerns about its effects on local democratic decision-making processes and unequal urban power relations.

The forum Urban geography in times of crisis discusses the transformation of urban geography in the entanglement of epistemological and worldly crises. In our introductory reflections, we highlight some of its contributions' crosscutting insights, weave a common thread through this dialogue, and discuss obstacles to as well as critical resources necessary when rethinking and possibly changing practices of knowledge production.

The text explores the challenges and methods of research in repressive contexts, through the case of the Woman, Life, Freedom uprisings in Iran. Drawing on a study of post-revolutionary Iran, it discusses the production of empirical knowledge without direct presence, through digital tools and archival practices. Examining images, discourses and acts of revolt, such as unveiling, it analyzes a radical shift in collective values, affects, belongings and the relations between state and society.