Investing the professional skills of architecture and planning in political and legal campaigns to challenge the structures of spatial power. Within the dominant legal framework, this might involve offering expert opinions to support court petitions and planning objections, or the preparation of counter-plans. In a wider sense, the notion of ‘advocacy’ extends to seeking the intervention of forces outside of this dominant framework, lending the same weight of expert opinion to more overtly ‘political’ campaigns aiming to ensure an atmosphere of accountability.
Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, recently published Volume 2 of Makan (meaning ‘Place’ in Arabic), their periodic journal for Land, Planning and Justice. This volume reveals the centrality of spatial planning and urban design in the continued suppression of Palestinian history and memory. Indeed, it is argued that this erasure […]
This week, the Coalition to Save Lifta announced that, following a petition submitted on 6 March, an Israeli court had ordered a temporary freeze on plans to build a new luxury Jewish neighbourhood on the remains of the Palestinian village of Lifta.
In their 7th annual conference in London, entitled ‘Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine’, the SOAS (School of Oriental and Aftrican Studies) Palestine Society have chosen to focus on the theme of ‘settler colonialism’, both in terms of its history and its ongoing relevance as a point of focus in the struggle for justice […]
by Ahmad Barclay An article published in the Società Italiana di Scienze Psicosociali per la Pace (Italian Society of Psycho-Social Sciences for Peace) journal “Pace, Conflitti e Violenza”, featured on this site last week. (Republished on arenaofspeculation.org with permission from the author.) My personal interest in the spatial politics of Israel-Palestine was kindled through long […]
A new online publication exploring the planning-citizenship relationship in the context of urban space and a particular form of government, the ethnocracy. The case of Tel Aviv-Jaffa is used to illustrate these dynamics and highlight the potential of urban social movements to advance their struggle for urban justice to substantive citizenship.