Categories
Critical Speculation Spatial Analysis

On Strategies of Spatial Appropriation and Resistance in Palestine

By Ahmad Barclay and Dena Qaddumi This article was originally posted on opendemocracy.net as part of the Cities in Conflict Series. The establishment of the village Bab Al-Shams (“gate of the sun”) on 11 January 2013 represented a new evolution in the unfolding patterns of spatial resistance in Palestine. Conversely, the response of the Israeli […]

Categories
Spatial Analysis

Remapping Palestine and the Politics of Injury

By Aimee Shalan This article, a reflection on the 2009 film “Videomappings: Aida, Palestine” by Till Roeskens, was originally published on Jadaliyya. It is featured on arenaofspeculation.org with kind permission from the author. The struggle over Palestine—a struggle in which ideas, representations, rhetoric, and images are all fiercely contested—has been so overexposed in mainstream media […]

Categories
Spatial Analysis

Signposts from a Contested Landscape: A Photographic Archive

Words and images by Diego Segatto In this original article for arenaofspeculation.org, Diego Segatto shares his experiences of reading the conflict through the built and natural landscapes of Israel-Palestine. His photographs are generously shared here on a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 license. Questo articolo è pubblicato anche in italiano. Il testo italiano segue l’inglese. Surveillance […]

Categories
Critical Speculation

After September? Strategies in Bypass Urbanism

With the much-vaunted month of September 2011 now behind us, and the Palestinian Authority’s statehood recognition drive presently forestalled by UN bureaucracy, perhaps it is a good time to turn our eyes back to the situation on the ground. As yet another settlement expansion receives approval, it is increasingly difficult to square the idea of […]

Categories
Advocacy Critical Speculation

Palestine: Between Spatial Realities and Engaging the Imagination

by Ahmad Barclay and Dena Qaddumi This article was originally published on Jadaliyya as a part of the recent roundtable in response to ‘Occupation Law and the One State Reality’ by Darryl Li, which was featured on this site last month. You can read the full roundtable on the Jadaliyya site, including contributions from Noura […]

Categories
Critical Speculation Spatial Analysis

Common Assembly: Deterritorializing the Palestinian Parliament

In their latest project, DAAR (Decolonizing Architecture Art Residency) investigate the site of the abandoned ‘Palestinian Parliament’ building in East Jerusalem, attempting to spatialise questions of democratic representation within a ‘deterritorialized’ Palestinian diaspora, and to imagine an ‘extra-territorial’ space of assembly “that is able to represent all Palestinians: those living in Israel, under its occupation, […]

Categories
Physical Intervention

Olive Revolution: Challenging the Closure of Jerusalem

Today (26th August), a broad coalition of grassroots activists will descend on Jerusalem from four directions, marching on Israeli checkpoints in Qalandia (Ramallah), Bethlehem, Shu’afat refugee camp and the village of Biddu. The action coincides with the international Youm Al-Quds (Jerusalem Day), which is marked annually on the last Friday of Ramadan. The action has […]

Categories
Critical Speculation

Decolonizing the Mind: TEDxRamallah Talk by Alessandro Petti

Alessandro Petti, director of DAAR (Decolonizing Architecture Art Residency), talks about the work and approach of the practice. The talk was a part of the TEDxRamallah event, previously featured on arenaofspeculation.org and supported by contributors to the site. The DAAR office was founded in 2007 with the aim of moving beyond simply describing the spatial […]

Categories
Spatial Analysis

There’s more to Gaza than broken slabs of concrete

By Sami Kishawi This article was originally published by the Electronic Intifada on 7 July 2011 and is republished on arenaofpeculation.org with permission from the author. You can read more of Sami’s dispatches from Gaza on his blog ‘Sixteen Minutes to Palestine’ Many of the people I’ve spoken to in Gaza City don’t object to […]

Categories
Advocacy Physical Intervention

Freedom Flotilla II: Towards Ending the Siege on Gaza

In the coming week, activists from across the world are taking part in a collective action aimed at ending the siege of Gaza. Freedom Flotilla II (dubbed the “Stay Human” flotilla in memory of Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni) is expected to bring together ships from 10 different countries, carrying passengers from across the spectrum of […]

Categories
Advocacy Critical Speculation

Counter-Mapping Return: Towards Transforming Imagined Geographies into Reality

Following the events of May 15th, grassroots activists and community organisations have chosen June 5th – Naksa Day, the anniversary commemorating the displacement of thousands of Palestinians during the 1967 War – as an occasion for further mobilisation towards actively asserting the Palestinan right to return. In the context of our recent feature, we wanted […]

Categories
Critical Speculation Spatial Analysis

Subjective Atlas of Palestine: Asserting the Right to Narrate

The right to history, to individual and collective memories of the past, and to a self-determined perspective on the future were at the core of the Nakba commemorations across the world on 15th May. The Subjective Atlas of Palestine, edited by Annelys de Vet and published by 010 Publishers, seems to offer an embodiment of […]