881. Monterescu and Rabinowitz: Mixed Towns, Trapped Communities: Historical Narratives, Spatial Dynamics, Gender Relations and Cultural Encounters in Palestinian-Israeli Towns
- Author:
- Elizabeth Faier
- Publication Date:
- 12-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- This edited collection of essays examines how processes of modernity and nationalism intersect in the production and shaping of urban spaces. By focusing on "mixed towns" in Israel/Palestine, the authors illuminate the varied ways in which individuals and groups articulate identity, conflict, collective memory, nationalism, and daily life. Unlike much literature on the Middle East that favors homeland/Holy Land dichotomies or other static models, this volume eschews such tidy frameworks and instead reveals what the editors describe as "a fascinating array of contradictions, overlaps, collusions, protrusions" (p. 2) that characterize interpersonal and structural interactions between Jewish and Palestinian urbanites in both historical and contemporary contexts. Strikingly, the chapters demonstrate how the realization of one set of national goals comes directly in the face of "the other," often involving processes of erasure that rewrite the city. As editors Daniel Monterescu and Dan Rabinowitz argue, the "competition over space, including urban space, was part and parcel of reality from the initial stages of the bifurcated national effort".
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Israel, and Palestine