The spatiality of a military base as urban geographical entity: the case of ‘The Pikkud’ in Beersheba, Israel

Abstract

Urban studies have increasingly engaged in understanding the role of the military in co-producing the city. Yet, the spatial role of an individual military base within a particular city has largely been overlooked. This deficiency is particularly acute as, due to contradictory governance regimes, a military base constitutes a contradictory non-democratic interface with a liberal urban civil space. This deficiency is due primarily to failure to view a military base as a concrete ‘geographical entity’ with a geographical agency. The Lefebvrian spatial trialectic (perceived conceived and lived spaces) is employed here as a framework for analyzing the relationships between the base and the city. We bind it theoretically and analytically with the concept of a geographical entity carrying a geographical agency. Based primarily on a qualitative methodology, we studied the spatiality of an urban military base in Beersheba, Israel, analyzing the three facets of spaces. The analysis reveals that neoliberal concepts held by urban planning professionals regarding urban space as conditioned by the presence of the military base (conceived space) are not necessarily congruent with those of the public which routinely lives and experiences (lived space) the concrete materiality of the base (perceived space). Thus, as a geographical entity within the city, a military base exists apart yet concurrently there are overlapping relations and entanglements with community life, suggesting a spatiality that extends beyond its physical territory. With these conceptual and methodological approaches and insights this study adds to the recently growing field of urban military geographies which hitherto overlooked these spatial perspectives of the military.