The politics of time: Political entropy, settler colonialism and urban ruination in Hebron / Al-Khalil, Palestine

This paper explores the relationships between settler colonialism and temporal regimes of urban ruination in the Palestinian city of Hebron/Al-Khalil. The city is divided into two sectors: H1, controlled by the Palestinian National Authority, and H2, roughly 20% of the city, including 33,000 Palestinians and 700 Jewish settlers, living under direct Israeli military occupation. Drawing on fieldwork in H2, we identify several temporal formations shaping H2: the settler-messianic time that spatializes the past as a platform to facilitate colonial expansion; contemporary military control that seeks to destabilize Palestinian homes, their everyday lives and ontological security in the present; and the Palestinian effort to recalibrate the rhythm of elimination and recover the future. The paper develops the concept of political entropy: a temporal technology of control that builds on the process of natural decay. Israel uses the power of time and entropy to let Palestinian assets decay slowly while prohibiting proper renovation and maintenance. The mundane violence of political entropy tends to remain unseen, as the harm is done slowly, allegedly naturally. Facing the settler colonial temporalities that maintain a state of undecidedness, where deferral itself becomes a weapon which lets entropy operate without interruption, Hebron\u27s Palestinian inhabitants aim at slowing down the effects of time by applying friction to the process of ruination, as well as by their insistence on futurability. By identifying the temporalities trapping the city\u27s Palestinian population, our paper thus frames Hebron\u27s H2 as space that is simultaneously ruined and reclaimed

(q) as a sociolinguistic variable in the Arabic of Gaza City

This study examines the effect of dialect contact between the indigenous residents of Gaza City and refugees originally from the city of Jaffa. The study offers a quantitative sociolinguistic investigation of the variable (q) in the speech of 22 residents of Gaza City. The sample is divided along the lines of dialect background and gender, and it is separated into three age groups. Analysis of the data has revealed that for (q) a significant correlation exists with dialect background and gender, with female speakers and speakers of a Jaffa dialect background showing the highest tendencies to favor the glottal [ʔ] realization for (q). Male speakers in the sample, regardless of their dialect background, showed a tendency to favor the localized [g] realization of (q)

Strongholding the Synagogue to Stronghold the City: Urban-Religious Configurations in an Israeli Mixed-City

This article explores the geopolitical significance of public religious institutions and the ways in which it has corresponded to changes in their urban environment. Based on a spatial analysis and ethnography of urban synagogues in the northern Israeli mixed city of Acre that were established and constructed by communities of Jewish immigrants from North African countries, we demonstrate how significant shifts in the city's demographic pattern and landscape have affected these institutions' ascribed functions and meanings. We theorise this dynamic as ‘strongholding’, or, more specifically, strongholding the synagogue as a means of strongholding the city. The formation of the synagogue as a stronghold is enacted through a dual configuration process by which the religious legitimacy, which the synagogue bestows on those who maintain it, is interwoven into a broader urban sociopolitical struggle to claim a presence in the city

Border Wines: Terroir across Contested Territory in Central Europe and the Middle East

International audienceEtymologically related, the concepts of terroir and territoriality display divergent cultural histories. While one designates the palatable characteristics of place as a branded story of geographic distinction (goût de terroir), the other imbues the soil with political meaning, defendable boundaries, and collective entitlement. This presentation traces the production of GIs in contested spaces across political borders. Tracing the ascent of terroir as an organizing principle for the global wine culture and food industry, I examine the intersection of political geography, national identity, and cultural locality in the production of edible authenticity. Border wine regions such as Tokaj between Hungary and Slovakia, the Judean Hills and South Mount Hebron in Israel and Palestine, and the former Cold War buffer zone between Bulgaria and Greece illustrate the articulation of terroir as a story of border-crossing. Beyond the essentialization of terroir as “nature” and the contested politics of territory, I identify three formations of the terroir-territory connection: (a) territorialization of terroir, (b) terroir-ization of territory, and (c) terroir expansion. In the case of “border wines” strategies of boundary- and terroir-making highlight the creative agency of GI producters across political territories