Spatial Alternatives and Counter-Sovereignties in Israel/Palestine

Abstract

The securitization of the spaces of Israeli-Palestinian interaction, from checkpoints to the West Bank Separation Wall, continues to intensify and receive attention from journalists, scholars, and activists. Understandably, the focus is on the negative consequences of existing spatial configurations. Receiving far less attention is the development of alternative spatial formations which might advance forms of "desecuritization," especially in those spaces that are crucial hinges of IsraeliPalestinian interaction (Jerusalem and other mixed cities, the Wall, the Green Line, roads). This article explores whether alternative ways of using, organizing, experiencing, and coexisting in space-especially at the micro level-hold out promise for helping to reframe significant dimensions of Israeli-Palestinian interaction. It seeks to better understand whether disjointed forms of sovereignty that appear-or disappear -across the occupation can be met by counter-sovereignties; whether new spatial counter-realities can be articulated through everyday life; and whether forms of agency, especially contestation, can reset understandings of, and perspectives on, spaces. A range of examples are considered within Jerusalem, mixed cities, the occupied Palestinian territories and at the border, bearing on religious sites, healthcare, gentrification, security infrastructure, popular protest, and festivals.The securitization and Judaization (Yiftachel 1999) of the spaces of IsraeliPalestinian interaction-from checkpoints to the Separation Wall in the West Bank-are intensifying and receiving increasing attention from critical geographers and other social scientists (Harker 2010). The focus is mostly on the profoundly negative consequences of spatial configurations associated, in particular, with the occupation (Ophir, Givoni, and Hanafi 2009). Receiving far less attention is the existence and possibilities of spatial forms, practices, and understandings that might advance desecuritization and de-subjugation, particularly those within the crucial hinges in Israeli-Palestinian interaction (for example, 1 Authors' notes: Authors are listed in alphabetical order. They would like to thank the IPS editors and anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments.

Spaces of desecuritisation: understanding changing audiences within desecuritisation

“…The introduction of space and horizontal contestation is guided by three articles, including Doty's two articles on space and (de)securitisation (2007; 2011) and Gazit and Latham (2014).…”

“The land belonged to Nepal but the people belonged to Tibet”: Overlapping sovereignties and mobility in the Limi Valley Borderland

“…Though Latham develops social sovereignty as a concept to address domains of social existence such as transboundary capital markets, he suggests that it can also 'emerge around the unique rules, laws, institutions, and customs of relatively self-governing groups living within existing state boundaries' (Latham 2000, 14). Social sovereignty can clearly emerge among groups that identify as indigenous, as well as others, typically organized around identity and land (Gazit and Latham 2014).…”

Protesting at the crossroads: Framing ‘in-between places’ in spatial analyses of contention

“…Studies examining the effects of ethnocratic governance on Palestinians in Israel have also struggled to break with this city-centred view. A focus on "mixed cities" (Yiftachel & Yacobi, 2003;Yacobi, 2009;Gazit & Latham, 2014) -those large Jewish cities (such as Jerusalem, Haifa, Jaffa or Lod) with a significant Palestinian minority population "most of which were, before 1948, grand Arab cities that were defeated and whose original Arab majority populations were displaced" (King Irani 2007: 180) -remains popular. With their particular demographic make-up and patterns of concentration, mixed cities are useful case studies for the study of ethnic expansionism and control as well as of conflict urbanism (Misselwitz, 2006).…”