Everyday Life: Spatial Oppression and Resilience under the Israeli Occupation. The Case of the Old Town of Nablus, Palestine

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2012

Everyday Urbanism Between Public Space and "Forbidden" Space": The Case of the Old City of Nablus, Palestine

Considering the unpredictability of the continuous Israeli military invasions for most of the Palestinian cities, this study takes the Old City of Nablus as a case study to shed light on the importance of everyday life. This paper is part of an ethnographic research on the interrelationship between people and their built environment under an extremely conflicted political situation, and the households’ everyday living experiences that present their resistance and “sense of place”. It attempts to discuss the responsiveness of the everyday of the Old City of Nablus and its urban fabric competence not only to the socio-economic needs, but also to the accelerated political struggle and resistance facing the continuous invasion and occupation by the Israeli military.To reveal the silenced stories, the paper’s structure follows an ethnographic, exploratory, and analytical approach based on the researcher’s observations, interviews, photos, and available literature. This paper serves the research on people’s everyday life and urban public space in the city of Nablus, and continues researching the interrelationship between urban and social fabric and how it impacts the function and harmonization of public space, and “forbidden space” at certain times. Similarly, it documents and introduces Palestine as a case study that represents the everyday urbanism practices under the occupying Israeli military operations, to available theories for scholars who have discussed the everyday urbanism practices and tactics in different contexts. In this sense, history is incorporated in the phenomenon of this research case study as ongoing implication on both present living experience and space

The neoliberal real estate model and the fantasy of hyperreality: the case of Rawabi City, Palestine

Abstract The establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA) after the 1993 Oslo Accords opened doors for private local, and international, investments, mainly in real estate sector. This paper focuses on the case study of the city of Rawabi (hereafter, Rawabi), in the Ramallah and Al-Bireh governorate (R-AG). In such context, the urban boom has been influenced by the neoliberal market and new global realities, cultural fascinations, and technological advances. As argued by Jean Baudrillard, the engagement of the technology in the architecture industry not only enabled the emergence of new architectural typologies and meanings to market alternative models of “dream designs” but also has affected the boundaries between the real and the imagined. Following a qualitative ethnographic socio-spatial methodological approach, this study examines the city model of Rawabi, in reference to neoliberal policies, the investors’ vision, emerging architectural typology, promoted readymade lifestyle, and residents’ everyday lived reality. The study involves theories of selected literature on neoliberal policies and profit-driven urban development, hyperreality, and architectural industry to discuss the evolution of the commodified urban landscape in the Occupied Palestine and its impacts on the quality of living, accessibility and social inclusion

Palestinian refugee women and the Jenin refugee camp: Reflections on urbicide and the dilemmas of home in exile

In March 2002, the Israeli military launched its most lethal attack on the West Bank since 1967. In the Jenin refugee camp, the assault included the deliberate destruction of homes and infrastructure including the entire Hawashin neighbourhood. This article considers the memories of Palestinian women who survived the urbicidal war on Jenin and confronted the difficulties of reconstruction. It shows how women enacted particular forms of agency during the siege that do not fit into discussions of urbicide or national resistance. Our analysis also examines the reconstruction of the Jenin camp to understand how its transformation reveals its significance for Palestinian women at both the levels of the home and the urban camp. We argue that the meaning of the camp is inseparable from the different ways it is inhabited. Thus for Palestinian women, the spatial reconfiguration of homes during the reconstruction of the camp permanently erased the experience of sociality once lived by women before the attack. This not only reproduced the effects of the urbicide but also disturbed the ways women inhabited the camp and provoked fears that it could be transformed into a permanent space and thus preclude the possibility of the right of return in the future