top of page
האם שיוך מעמדי ואתני של רשויות מקומיות ושל קהילות משפיע על פוטנציאל הצמצום של אי־שוויון מרחבי? מטרת מחקר זה היא לזהות תהליכי עומק ביחסי הכוחות המרחביים המשפיעים על שינויים בתוואי הגבולות המוניציפליים. המחקר מפתח וממשיג טריטוריאליות מרכזית־מקומית והוא ממוקם בצומת שבין פוליטיקה, סוציולוגיה וגאוגרפיה. לצורך כך המחקר מתבסס על מיפוי של 94 ההחלטות של ועדת גבולות שהתקבלו מבג"ץ הקרקעות בשנת 2003 ועד שנת 2016 ועל ניתוחן האמפירי־כמותי, וכן על מיפוי המעמד החברתי־כלכלי, הקרבה למרכז, השיוך האתני והקרבה הפוליטית של הרשויות המקומיות שאליהן הועברו קרקעות. מן הממצאים המרכזיים עולה כי מכלול ההחלטות אינו מעיד על רפורמה כוללת וברורה המשרתת מדיניות של צמצום אי־השוויון המרחבי או של שימורו. רשויות מקומיות המאופיינות במעמד חברתי־כלכלי נמוך זכו ליהנות מתוספת קרקעות לשטחן, לעתים בשיעור ניכר, בתנאי שהן ממוקמות במרכז הארץ או שייכות לרוב היהודי או שהן מקורבות פוליטית לשר הפנים ולמחנה הימני־ חרדי. רשויות מקומיות מן הפריפריה הגאוגרפית והחברתית, המאוכלסות במיעוט ערבי ואינן מקורבות פוליטית לשר המכהן - נהנו במידה פחותה מן הזכות לתכנן ומפוטנציאל הפיתוח של הקרקע. תרומתו של מחקר זה היא בבחינתה האמפירית של הדינמיקה הפוליטית־מרחבית במישור המקומי והמרכזי, לראשונה, עשור ומחצה לאחר בג"ץ הקרקעות, ובתוך כך, בחינתו של אחד הגורמים המרכזיים המשפיעים על אי־שוויון מרחבי - החלוקה של משאב יקר ביותר - הקרקע. תרומתו התאורטית של המחקר ממוקדת בהשפעה הפוליטית המתחוללת בין שחקנים שונים ברובד המקומי ובין הרובד המקומי לבין הרובד המרכזי, על הזכות לתכנן ולפתח את הקרקע ועל פוטנציאל הצמצום של אי־שוויון מרחבי.
אי השוויון החברתי בישראל, ובעיקר הקשריו המרחביים עומדים בראש סדר היום המחקרי והציבורי
בקרב סוציולוגים וחוקרי מדיניות ציבורית. למדינה, באמצעות משרד הפנים, מנגנונים של חלוקה מחדש
של המשאב המרכזי – הקרקע. במחקר קודם עמדנו על ההשלכות של פעילותם של וועדות גבולות אד-
הוק בין השנים 2003-2016 אותם סיכמנו במאמר 'טריטוריאליות מרכזית־מקומית ושינוי בעירבון מוגבל :
האם ועדות גבולות מהוות מנגנון למיתון אי־שוויון מרחבי?' 1 ובו טענו על שינוי בערבון מוגבל. במחקר
זה ביקשנו לעמוד ולאמוד את ההשלכות של מנגנון נוסף – הוועדות הגיאוגרפיות הקבועות בשנים 2016-2022 אשר ניתן להם מנדט להמליץ על חלוקת הקרקע וכן חלוקה מחדש של מיסי ארנונה. סך הכל, המחקר
התבסס על ניתוח כמותני של 376 החלטות שהתקבלו בשנים 2003-2022 על-ידי וועדות גבולות )אד-הוק
וקבועות( שבסמכותן ואחריותן להמליץ על שינוי גבולות מוניציפליים, כלומר להעביר קרקעות מרשות
מקומית אחת לזולתה, ועל חלוקה מחדש של מיסי הארנונה.
Authors: Daphna Levine, Shai Sussman, Meirav Aharon-Gutman and
Sharon Yavo Ayalon
Abstract: This research introduces a pioneering methodology and user-friendly online dashboard for examining population shifts during urban redevelopment in Bat Yam, Israel, part of the Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area. The simulation tool, operated through scripts, predicts how redevelopment scenarios will impact household demographics over time. Its output is a population track-change CSV file detailing demographic changes. The accompanying online dashboard visually presents these changes, making the data accessible to policymakers and planners. The tool’s
consideration of environmental factors enhances its applicability in identifying vulnerable populations and resilient communities amidst urban renewal. This user friendly approach, compatible with existing planning tools, underscores the article’s significance in advancing urban planning practice and addressing societal needs.
Authors: Meirav Aharon-Gutman, Mordechai Schaap, Idan Lederman
Abstract: This study’s point of departure is the need to develop a new theoretical language and tool-box to contend with the rising inequality that continues to expand under the spatially intensive and high density conditions stemming from demographic growth and large migration movements. Its response to this challenge is a 3D regional model based on the immersive visualization theater (VizLab) maintained by the Technion’s Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning. Following the breakthrough in research on spatial inequality facilitated by VR technology, we propose “social topography” as a theory and a modelling method that stands to make a significant contribution to both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Social topography, we maintain, creates a new sociology: one of contour lines and spatially embedded hierarchies that exists under VR conditions and enables us to put on 3D glasses and go where the research community has not yet gone before.
Authors: Sharon Yavo-Ayalon, Daphna Levine, Shai Sussman, Meirav Aharon Gutman
Abstract: This research turns the spotlight to the deregulation of once publicly funded affordable housing. Through a microsimulation that follows the conversion from affordable to market-rate units on Roosevelt Island New York, we estimate the expected demographic changes each year between 1976 and 2070. The simulation combines information from the American Community Survey, the island's masterplan, the privatization agreements, and interviews with residents, to produce interactive graphs at three urban scales: the neighborhood, the project, and the building. We found that while the households of market-rate units are gradually becoming younger and more affluent, the households of affordable units are becoming older and more impoverished. Despite an individual agreement for each building, the demographic changes are similar, and that, those changes will affect low-income buildings first. Moreover, upon expiration, 30 percent of the existing protected tenants will be over 65 and at risk of being displaced. The simulation is available at http://ridigitaltwin.pythonanywhere.com/.
Complexity theory has become a conceptual framework and a source of inspiration for Smart City initiatives. In addition to many other conceptions, the Urban Digital Twin (UDT) became both a concept and a tool for generating the revolutionary act of data-driven 3D city modeling. Indeed, the UDT has increased the ability of planners to make decisions vis-à-vis data-driven city models; at the same time, however, it has attracted criticism because of its focus on the physical dimensions of cities. In facing these challenges, we seek to join the conceptual and practical efforts to generate a social turn in the field of Smart Cities and urban innovation. Creating a UDT with a social focus, we maintain, is not only a 1:1 translation of the built environment into the social realm, but also demands interdisciplinary knowledge from the fields of sociology, anthropology, planning, and ethics studies. This article makes theoretical and methodological contributions. Theoretically, it discusses the potential contribution of the Social Urban Digital Twin (SUDT) to the theory of urbanism, enabling us to represent the physical and the social environments as a single fabric. Methodologically, it enhances the know-how of the City Analytics research community by advancing a six-phase protocol for developing SUDTs, each phase of which integrates technological conceptions and social-theoretical content. The phases of the SUDT protocol are demonstrated using a specific case study: the experience of elderly residents of the Haifa neighborhood of Hadar—a low-income neighborhood in Israel characterized by ethnic and national diversity—during the Coronavirus pandemic. We conclude by discussing the contributions and limitations of the SUDT.
Authors: Sharon Yavo Ayalon, Meirav Aharon-Gutman, Tal Alon Mozes
Abstract: This study explores the relationship between art and urban boundaries using the case study of a fringe theatre festival in the Israeli mixed-city of Acre. While mixed cities today are understood as agglomerations of enclaves, maintained and reinforced by boundaries, urban designers and artists have used art as a culture-led regeneration strategy through which these boundaries may be breached. This study undermines the shared assumption of both fields: that art has the power to breach boundaries, by juxtaposing a city’s artistic activity with its segregation patterns and boundaries. Using super-positioning, the findings of two research methods have been integrated: urban research and ethnographic field work. The article shows that although the artistic activity in question is rooted in an avant-garde radical desire to subvert socioeconomic structures, it actually produces new versions and interpretations of the same segregations and boundaries in both space and society.
Authors: Meirav Aharon-Gutman
Abstract: Based on fieldwork conducted in a seam line neighbourhood in Jerusalem, this article contributes to the ongoing discourse on art in public spaces as a generator of urban renewal. The article suggests that re-thinking this convention from a Global South perspective would enable us to critically discuss the relation between art in public spaces and urban renewal. This research shows how site-specific intervention art activities had produced a conflict that consequently led to the expulsion of the artists group from the neighbourhood. Three theoretical concepts from Hannah Arendt’s work were used in the analysis of the results: political/social, action and public realm. This article claims that the artists’ group has aspired to be simultaneously ‘social’ and ‘political’: by means of a political act they wished to create a ‘dialogue’ and a ‘meeting point’ with Palestinians residing in East Musrara. Every attempt to be simultaneously political and social was perceived by the neighbourhood representatives as deceitful and threatening.
Authors: Batel Yossef Ravid, Meirav Aharon-Gutman
Abstract: Complexity theory has become a conceptual framework and a source of inspiration for Smart City initiatives. In addition to many other conceptions, the Urban Digital Twin (UDT) became both a concept and a tool for generating the revolutionary act of data-driven 3D city modeling. Indeed, the UDT has increased the ability of planners to make decisions vis-à-vis data-driven city models; at the same time, however, it has attracted criticism because of its focus on the physical dimensions of cities. In facing these challenges, we seek to join the conceptual and practical efforts to generate a social turn in the field of Smart Cities and urban innovation. Creating a UDT with a social focus, we maintain, is not only a 1:1 translation of the built environment into the social realm, but also demands interdisciplinary knowledge from the fields of sociology, anthropology, planning, and ethics studies. This article makes theoretical and methodological contributions. Theoretically, it discusses the potential contribution of the Social Urban Digital Twin (SUDT) to the theory of urbanism, enabling us to represent the physical and the social environments as a single fabric. Methodologically, it enhances the know-how of the City Analytics research community by advancing a six-phase protocol for developing SUDTs, each phase of which integrates technological conceptions and social-theoretical content. The phases of the SUDT protocol are demonstrated using a specific case study: the experience of elderly residents of the Haifa neighborhood of Hadar—a low-income neighborhood in Israel characterized by ethnic and national diversity—during the Coronavirus pandemic. We conclude by discussing the contributions and limitations of the SUDT.
Authors: Nir Cohen, Meirav Aharon-Gutman
Abstract: In November 2011, workers of Peri HaGalil (PG)–a factory in the town of Hatzor–protested outside the Israeli Knesset against the owners’ plan to lay off fifty of them. The demonstration was part of a campaign to pressure Members of Knesset (MKs) to approve the transfer of a 12 million New Israeli Shekels (NIS) grant that would prevent its closure. Inside the hall, the Chairman of the Workers’ Board pleaded with MKs to prove their solidarity with workers by voting in favor. Speaking passionately, Mr. Haziza asked,‘What did we ask for? Give [us] the right to work’(Committee on the Economy, 2012: 11). Later that week, having received financial assurances from the government, the owners reversed their plan and workers returned to work. The Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor (MOITAL) explained the decision,‘It was clear to me that closing the plant would be a death blow to the town’(Yefet and Avital, 2012). A year later, workers of Negev Textile (NT) gathered in front of the Minister of the Economy’s residence to protest his refusal to give a grant of 3 million NIS to the owner. Chanting ‘we’ve nowhere to go’, protesters called on the Minister to salvage the last stronghold of the textile industry in the town of Sderot. Despite sympathetic media coverage of the protest, and their campaign in general, the grant was eventually declined and the factory was shut down in September 2013. Explaining his decision, Minister Bennet declared ‘Had we backed down in this case... hundreds of firms with difficulties would have followed with similar demands’(Seidler, 2013a).
Authors: Daphna Levine, Shai Sussman, Meirav Aharon-Gutman
Abstract: Time is the main axis for understanding the functional, economic, and social aspects of selforganized redevelopment. When such processes are intensive and are conducted contemporaneously by large numbers of urban agents on different spatial and temporal scales and as a result of different motivations, urban planning is fragmented into multiple simultaneous and unexpected projects. The post-zoning era in urban planning stemmed from a recognition of this kind of complexity of urban dynamics and the need for a flexible planning system. Web-based geographic information systems (GIS) and planning support systems (PSS) are employed widely as digital tools to support planning practices. Still, the solutions tend to be isolated implementations that do not achieve sophisticated management of the complex temporal-spatial urban dynamics of self-organization. To this end, the article presents a useful set of multidimensional (2D, 3D, and 4D) planning tools that can be implemented by municipal planning departments to improve planning practices with relative ease. This toolbox facilitates the real-time updating of changes to individual buildings and allows all parties to see where delays are occurring, where they are impacting one another, and where environments of accelerated development are evolving in nearby urban plots. Identifying redevelopment clusters enables the formulation of an urban time-based planning policy. Using a spatial-temporal toolbox for planning, we argue, can facilitate recognition of the potential of self-organization as the leading form of contemporary urban planning.
Authors: Sharon Yavo–Ayalon, Meirav Aharon–Gutman, Tal Alon–Mozes
Abstract: Based on the case study of a Fringe theatre festival in a peripheral city in Israel, this article identifies and analyzes a moment of change in power relations between a peripheral city and the country’s central city. It offers an alternative perspective to urban discourse, which analyzes art projects in peripheral cities as duplicating colonial relations. We adapted the Marxist concept of a class in itself and a class for itself, from the socioeconomic realm to the urban realm, by using Bourdieu’s field theory as a link between the sociology of art and the urban realm. We argue that by taking control over the festival’s productive forces, the city evolved from a city in itself to a city for itself. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and architectural research, the article analyzes four decades of urban dynamics leading to this change and proposes a theoretical and methodological framework for deciphering contemporary urban process.
Authors: Meirav Aharon-Gutman, Nir Cohen
Abstract: Recent years have seen the Israeli state investing considerable efforts in the alleviation of unprecedentedly high inter-regional inequalities. Improved transportation networks intended to better connect peripheral residents to centrally located opportunities have been at the heart of this policy known as ‘periphery cancellation’. In this article, we study strategies deployed by young peripherals as they engage with the statist call for enhanced mobility between regions. Drawing on qualitative research conducted at ‘A Center for the Young’ in a small town in the predominantly rural Upper Galilee, we examine the extent to which young adults negotiate the recent state-led mobility turn. Taking a critical nobilities approach, we argue that statist aspirations of mobilizing peripherals to central hubs collide with socio-spatial constraints faced by many young residents. The official call for mobility is frequently met by a sense of spatial (im)mobility articulated by young agents who deploy instead alternative strategies to achieve socio-spatial mobility. Termed refusal, circulation, and refuge, these strategies draw on notions of peripheral stagnation, attributed to both state policies that have long marginalized the area as well as rooted conventions about the social and cultural inertia of peripheral residents. These strategies, we contend, widen existing inequalities between central haves and peripheral have nots while solidifying a sense of socio-spatial disenfranchisement among many of its young inhabitants.
Authors: Meirav Aharon-Gutman, David Burg
Abstract: Virtual reality environments have created new opportunities for visualizing social spaces in three dimensions, which enable addition of a vertical dimension. This creates a topographical landscape based on socio-economic characteristics of the urban system. Quantification of the socio-economic disparities between city pairs in relation to the spatial distances is the social topography slope, where a steeper slope indicates greater inequality in dense environments. To illustrate the effect of this measure of social inequality, we ask, what is the relationship between the value of the slope (the interaction between social and geographical distance) and the rates of crimes committed by residents of neighboring localities in a major locality? We test the applicability of this new measure to explain spatial discrepancies in social problems and find that high social inequality is significantly correlated with crime (R2 ¼ 0.50, P < 0.001) and mean income per capita to measure poverty (R2 ¼ 0.36, P < 0.001).
Authors: Daphna Levine, Meirav Aharon-Gutman
Abstract: Numerous studies have discussed urban regeneration from the perspective of the displacement of long-time residents in disadvantaged communities. However, under certain circumstances, urban regeneration occurring on the outskirts of high-demand areas can enable middle-class and lower-class apartment owners to leverage their apartments as financial assets using various strategies. Relying on a qualitative study (n = 50) conducted in Bat Yam, a suburban city in Israel’s Tel Aviv metropolitan area, this article proposes conceiving of the social impact of urban regeneration as a new inequality in which the ownership structure and the approach to real estate constitute a major link.
Authors: מירב אהרון-גוטמן, רואי גוטמן
Abstract: סגרנו 16 שנים במרכז, מתוכן שש שנים בתל אביב ועשור בהרצליה. ארזנו שלושה ילדים, כמה פריטי איקאה ואינספור ספרים וקלסרים ועברנו לצפון. לרואי הציעו משרה במכללה האקדמית תל-חי ובמיגל — מכון למחקר מדעי בגליל. ההצעה גררה שיחת מטבח לילית שדרשה החלטות. ”הם אומרים שלא כדאי לי להתקדם בתהליך אם אין אוקיי משפחתי לעבור לצפון”, אמר רואי. בבת אחת אמרנו כן. הוא בא איתי לאשדוד, לבוסטון, לניו יורק. בשיחות ארוכות רואי פרש את הנתיב: ”זה לא בשבילי לגדל ילדים בהרצליה”. חיכינו לרגע הזה והוא בא. זה לא אומר שהיינו מוכנים לו. לאן בצפון? יישובים קהילתיים היו מחוץ לתחום — שנה בקיבוץ ישראלי בניו יורק מילאה את מכסת הקהילתיות הנדרשת לנו לחיים שלמים )”לאן אתם נוסעים לחופשה? אתם לא עושים מינוי לקאנטרי?”(. גם ערי הפיתוח או טבריה וצפת לא היו על מפת האפשרויות. בצער ראינו את אחרוני חברינו האידיאולוגים נוטשים את עיירות הפיתוח ומגישים שטר כניעה לאחר ניסיון ארוך שנים לחולל בהן שינוי. האנתרופולוגיה היא יועצת נאמנה בזיהוי של רומנטיקה ילידית. נזהרנו שלא לחזור לקריית שמונה, מולדתה האורבנית של מירב. על התגובות להחלטה זו אפשר לכתוב מאמר שלם. נשארו המושבות: יסוד המעלה )חם נורא( וראש פינה. החלטנו לטובת ראש פינה.
איתי בארי, מירב אהרון גוטמן ויונתן לוזר
האם שיוך מעמדי ואתני של רשויות מקומיות ושל קהילות משפיע על פוטנציאל
הצמצום של אי־שוויון מרחבי? מטרת מחקר זה היא לזהות תהליכי עומק ביחסי הכוחות המרחביים המשפיעים על שינויים בתוואי הגבולות המוניציפליים. המחקר מפתח וממשיג טריטוריאליות מרכזית־מקומית והוא ממוקם בצומת שבין פוליטיקה, סוציולוגיה וגאוגרפיה. לצורך כך המחקר מתבסס על מיפוי של 94 ההחלטות של ועדת גבולות שהתקבלו מבג"ץ הקרקעות בשנת 2003 ועד שנת 2016 ועל ניתוחן האמפירי־כמותי, וכן על מיפוי המעמד החברתי־כלכלי, הקרבה למרכז, השיוך האתני והקרבה
Authors: Sharon Yavo-Ayalon, Tal Alon-Mozes & Meirav Aharon-Gutman
Abstract: This article explores the spatial and social relationship between theatre and the city through the case study of Acre, a mixed peripheral city in Israel. Despite the numerous studies dealing with artistic activity in the city, we still lack a clear, systematic method for understanding art’s role in urban space. This study attempts to overcome this lacuna by suggesting an analytical method for understanding the socio-spatial relations between theatre and the urban space in which it is practiced. The method is based on a juxtaposition of the city’s physical and social structure with the artistic activity of five theatre institutions, and uses super-positioning to combine two research methods: urban research and ethnographic fieldwork. By mapping the artistic activity, it gives shape to an abstract social phenomenon, therefore enabling its spatial analysis. The findings were analyzed according to four spatial categories: enclosure, centrality, axiality, and permeability. In the case study we explored, the artistic activity shape was limited by the city’s physical and social structure and had little effect on its immediate urban surroundings. We nonetheless emphasize the applicability of this methodology to other cities and other fields of art that could produce different shapes and lead to different outcomes.
Authors: Sharon Yavo‐Ayalon, Meirav Aharon‐Gutman, Tal Alon‐Mozes
Abstract: Based on the case study of a Fringe theatre festival in a peripheral city in Israel, this article identifies and analyzes a moment of change in power relations between a peripheral city and the country’s central city. It offers an alternative perspective to urban discourse, which analyzes art projects in peripheral cities as duplicating colonial relations. We adapted the Marxist concept of a class in itself and a class for itself, from the socioeconomic realm to the urban realm, by using Bourdieu’s field theory as a link between the sociology of art and the urban realm. We argue that by taking control over the festival’s productive forces, the city evolved from a city in itself to a city for itself. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and architectural research, the article analyzes four decades of urban dynamics leading to this change and proposes a theoretical and methodological framework for deciphering contemporary urban process.
This work was supported by the Israeli President’s Grant for Scientific Excellence and Innovation and the Pais Council for Art and Culture.
Authors: Meirav Aharon Gutman
Abstract: This article offers exploration of one spatial aspect of crime in the divided city: the disproportionate concentration of crime events along Jerusalem’s former socio-historical border (known as ‘Green Line’) that is clearly reflected in a spatial analysis of crime. Offering insight into this phenomenon, an ethnographic investigation reveals the manner in which neighborhood residents cope with crime by blocking entry to it from the east, thereby reinforcing and reproducing already existing urban divisions. This second, qualitative layer of research enables us to follow urban boundary work in action, which is important, as focusing on boundary work (as opposed to borders) offers insight not only into divided cities as fact but into the mechanisms, logic and culture that reproduce and reshape their urban divisions. In contrast to hegemonic analyses that highlight the importance of macro-politics in shaping the lines that divide the divided city, this article considers crime, and the way residents struggle against it from below, as a central mechanism that reinforces and reproduces the divisions of the divided city.
Authors: Meirav Aharon-Gutman, Noa Prawer
תקציר: תמ”א 38 התכנית הארצית למיגון מפני רעידות אדמה הוטענה בעוצמות: בהציעה אחוזי בנייה באיזורי ביקוש וביצירת קואליציה בין המדינה, השוק הפרטי ובעלי הבתים. למרות זאת עד היום אושרו לחיזוק רק כ 4%- ממלאי הבניינים הפוטנציאלי. השפעתה של האינטראקציה החברתית על הסיכוי להוציא את התכנית לפועל – כמעט שלא נבחנה. באמצעות מחקר הנשען על אתנוגרפיה של אספות בעלי הבתים וניתוח פיזי-חברתי של שלושה מיזמים בעיר תל אביב-יפו – ביקשנו להתחקות אחר האינטראקציה החברתית המאפשרת או מכשילה את מימוש התכנית.
Authors: Moriel Ram, Meirav Aharon Gutman
Abstract: In recent years, Lefebvre’s concept of rhythm analysis has been implied in various ways to critically examine how rhythms are formed, disrupted, and reformed through different urban venues. One theme that this body of knowledge has yet to comprehensively examine, however, is how changes in the urban sphere impact the spatial rhythms of religious institutions in cities, which can be pivotal for understanding how religious institutions are formed as urban public spaces. This article addresses this issue with a rhythm analysis of a particular religious urban locus: a synagogue in the mixed Palestinian and Jewish city of Acre in northern Israel. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and an urban survey, the article discusses how different forms of rhythm‐making undergo a process of contested synchronization with linear and cyclical rhythms of the city. More specifically, how the ability to forge a space hinges on the ability to maintain a rhythmic cycle of attendance, which, in turn, is not only dependent on the ability to achieve synchronization amongst the needs of the different participants but is also intertwined with the larger linear cycle of urban life as a rhythmic equation that fuses the personal with the political, the linear with the cyclical, and the religious with the urban.
Authors: Meirav Aharon-Gutman, Moriel Ram
Abstract: By employing Max Weber’s concept of objective possibility, this paper offers a theoretical conceptualization of a methodological approach to studying roads not taken in diversified cities. The paper incorporates Weber’s insight from the viewpoint of socio-historical analysis into an analysis of urban environments. In search of ‘other’ possibilities of planning, the paper presents a case study of the informal synagogues set up in Israel by members of Judeo-Arab communities. In this case, the possibility that was not actualized is ‘intimate publicness’, which encompasses new forms of organizing the relationship between private and public spaces.
Authors: Meirav Aharon-Gutman
Abstract: Based on fieldwork conducted in a seam line neighbourhood in Jerusalem, this article contributes to the ongoing discourse on art in public spaces as a generator of urban renewal. The article suggests that re-thinking this convention from a Global South perspective would enable us to critically discuss the relation between art in public spaces and urban renewal. This research shows how site-specific intervention art activities had produced a conflict that consequently led to the expulsion of the artists group from the neighbourhood. Three theoretical concepts from Hannah Arendt’s work were used in the analysis of the results: political/social, action and public realm. This article claims that the artists’ group has aspired to be simultaneously ‘social’ and ‘political’: by means of a political act they wished to create a ‘dialogue’ and a ‘meeting point’ with Palestinians residing in East Musrara. Every attempt to be simultaneously political and social was perceived by the neighbourhood representatives as deceitful and threatening.
Authors: Sharon Yavo Ayalon, Meirav Aharon-Gutman and Tal Alon Mozes
Abstract: This study explores the relationship between art and urban boundaries using the case study of a fringe theatre festival in the Israeli mixed-city of Acre. While mixed cities today are understood as agglomerations of enclaves, maintained and reinforced by boundaries, urban designers and artists have used art as a cultureled regeneration strategy through which these boundaries may be breached. This study undermines the shared assumption of both fields: that art has the power to breach boundaries, by juxtaposing a city’s artistic activity with its segregation patterns and boundaries. Using super-positioning, the findings of two research methods have been integrated: urban research and ethnographic field work. The article shows that although the artistic activity in question is rooted in an avant-garde radical desire to subvert socioeconomic structures, it actually produces new versions and interpretations of the same segregations and boundaries in both space and society.
Authors: Meirav Aharon-Gutman
תקציר: מאמר זה מתעד ומנהיר את המפגש בין קבוצת אמנים המכונה “מוסללה”, אשר פעלה במרחב הציבורי של שכונת מוסררה בירושלים בשנים 2009-2015 ,לבין המינהל הקהילתי של השכונה. היה זה מפגש בין מטרות הקבוצה ופעולותיה לבין הפרשנות שהעניקו להן אנשי המינהל הקהילתי, אבל גם ההפך: מפגש בין פעולות המינהל הקהילתי לבין הפרשנות שהעניקה להן קבוצת האמנים. תחילתו של המפגש בשיתוף פעולה; אחריתו בחילוקי דעות קשים אשר הובילו למאבק של המינהל הקהילתי בקבוצת האמנים עד להפסקת פעילותם והוצאתם מהשכונה.
Authors: Moriel Ram, Meirav Aharon-Gutman
Abstract: 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.
Labor agencies and the temporality of struggles: A comparative study in the Israeli periphery (2016)
Authors: Meirav Aharon-Gutman
Abstract: In November 2011, workers of Peri HaGalil (PG) – a factory in the town of Hatzor – protested outside the Israeli Knesset against the owners’ plan to lay off fifty of them. The demonstration was part of a campaign to pressure Members of Knesset (MKs) to approve the transfer of a 12 million New Israeli Shekels (NIS) grant that would prevent its closure. Inside the hall, the Chairman of the Workers’ Board pleaded with MKs to prove their solidarity with workers by voting in favor. Speaking passionately, Mr. Haziza asked, ‘What did we ask for? Give [us] the right to work’ (Committee on the Economy, 2012: 11). Later that week, having received financial assurances from the government, the owners reversed their plan and workers returned to work. The Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor (MOITAL) explained the decision, ‘It was clear to me that closing the plant would be a death blow to the town’ (Yefet and Avital, 2012).
Authors: Noga Shani, Meirav Aharon-Gutman
תקציר: ערי קודש מייצרות מרכזיות דתית ומהוות אבן שואבת מבחינה כלכלית, פוליטית וחברתית. עם הקמתה של מדינת ישראל חל שינוי במעמדן של ערי הקודש שבה והן הפכו לערים פריפריאליות. המושגים היחסיים “מרכז” ו”פריפריה” איבדו מכוחם והפכו למושגים אבסולוטיים, תלויי תרבות, המתארים מציאות עירונית ובה בעת משעתקים אותה. באמצעות מחקר אתנוגרפי עירוני שנערך בקרב חסידות ברסלב בצפת אנו מתעדות את מעמדן של ערי הקודש, שהן בה בעת מרכז רוחני ופריפריה מדינתית. את המורכבות הזאת ניתחנו באמצעות המושג “עבודת המקום”. עבודת המקום, כשהיא מתפרשת כעבודת האל, מחזקת את המקום כמרכז קדוש; בו בזמן היא מגבילה את יכולתם של הפרטים לעבוד בשוק העבודה, ובכך היא מנציחה את מעמדו של מקום כפריפריה מדינתית. באמצעות ניתוח זה אנו מערערות על ההגדרות המקובלות של מרכז ופריפריה ומשרטטות מפת קואורדינטות אחרת, המאפשרת להגדיר מחדש את המושגים מרכז ופריפריה ובכך להשיב להם את כוחם היחסי.
Authors: Sharon Yavo Ayalon, Meirav Aharon-Gutman and Tal Alon Mozes
Abstract: In this paper we examine a struggle waged by production line workers at a formerly state-owned factory located in Israel’s northern periphery. Intially an attempt to prevent the closure of the privatized factory, it soon became an all-out struggle through which production line workers deployed their peripheral location and ethnoclass identities to make claims for and enact their citizenship (at work). Drawing on two years of ethnographic research, we argue that despite—or perhaps because of—years of persistent labor market reforms traditional industrial factories remain critical spaces for the constitution of citizenship in Israel. In contrast to the past, in which state-sponsored industrial employment created a perfect congruence between labor market participation and citizenship (‘I work therefore I am a citizen’), recent processes aimed at enhancing labor market flexibility have fundamentally altered these relations. Under constant threats of downsizing, precariatized industrial workers in privatized factories experience a restless citizenship, a ceaseless battle to secure their jobs through what might be called the work of citizenship.
Authors: Meirav Aharon-Gutman
Abstract: This article examines the production of ‘high culture’ and how it shapes social mobility. I observe how the second generation of immigrants from North Africa have succeeded in rising up the Israeli social hierarchy by appropriating established modes of cultural expression. The founders of the Israel Andalusian Orchestra became aware that the road to full integration was closed to them by the politics of difference, that the way to total segregation from wider Israeli society was closed by economic and ontological dependence on the national state, and the option of multiculturalism condemned them to a permanently marginal status. They realized that they needed a new political approach and that cultural appropriation was the way by which they could reclaim their ethnic identity yet still establish themselves among the élite of Israel.
Authors: Meirav Aharon-Gutman
Abstract: This article describes and analyzes the social construction of the urban space of an immigrant city, with a special focus on ethnic enclaves, by bringing together the languages of urban design and urban-social research. The case of Ashdod has brought me to question the existing theoretical toolbox of social research, with its discourse of segregation–integration and multicultural theory. Following the career of the ethnic category at the junction between city planning and urban history and the way people consume the city’s structure, it is argued that the purpose of the narratives spoken in the center of a modern Israeli city is to pave a way into the heart of the imagined community. Having failed in their efforts to belong as equals, Israel’s immigrants have adopted a strategy termed here ‘distinct participation’. Analyzing their conduct and actions, it is concluded that in order to belong to the national community, they must first become different, and that nothing says ‘different’ better than ethnicity. This is the iron cage of ethnicity: ethnicity is not only distinctive and compartmentalizing; it is also a laissez-passer. These insights shed new light on the ongoing research into ethnic enclaves in immigrant cities and challenge the role of urban designers that act and involve in cities of immigrants.
Authors: Meirav Aharon-Gutman
Abstract: Engin Isin, in his work “Citizenship after Orientalism: Ottoman Citizenship,” offers a new paradigm for citizenship studies. Understanding citizenship after Orientalism begins with an inquiry into the kind of political culture that has emerged at the meeting point between immigrants and “imperial elites,” and how this political culture reshaped both groups.1 Following Isin’s paradigm, the goal of this paper is to open a new space for understanding political culture in polycultural, liberal societies. This new space lies at the intersection of the official perception of democracy and citizenship with the mixture of political languages used by the common people (as opposed to that used by the elites). The main challenge in this paper is to offer an ethnography of realsociology: an ethnography that liberates itself from the Occidental interpretation of citizenship, on the one hand, and from the fundamental interpretations of religion and ethnicity on the other. The ethnography of realsociology can shed a new light on the notion of citizenship: citizenship not as it is envisaged in the political philosophy of a normative future, but citizenship in the concrete politics of everyday life.
Authors: Meirav Aharon-Gutman
תקציר: עיר הלאום המודרנית אשדוד רוויה במופעים תרבותיים–פוליטיים הנתפסים כאישור נוסף לתיאוריה הרב תרבותית. במאמר זה, הנשען על המסורת של סוציולוגיה ואנתרופולוגיה אורבנית, תחום דעת המבקש לקשור בין מבנים פיזיים למבנים תרבותיים, אטען שחרשי התרבות, מפיקי הזיכרון מקרב הקבוצות החברתיות באשדוד אינם מבקשים להיבדל וליצור חלופה לנרטיב המרכזי. שלא כצפוי, פעולות הזיכרון וההנצחה של קבוצות אלה הן דווקא אמצעי להשתייך לקהילת הלאום. עוליה–מהגריה של מדינת ישראל בפתחו של האלף השלישי, לאחר שכשלו ניסיונותיהם לתבוע ולקבל שייכות כשווים, אימצו אסטרטגיה שאותה אכנה ”השתתפות מובחנת“. מניתוח פעולותיהם עולה שכדי להשתייך לקהילת הלאום הם חייבים להיבדל תחילה, ואין פעולת היבדלות יעילה מזו האתנית. זהו כלוב הברזל של האתניות: האתניות אינה רק קטגוריה מבחינה ומדירה אלא כרטיס כניסה, אישור מעבר חברתי, מוסדי ופוליטי.
Authors: Meirav Aharon-Gutman
Abstract: Both politicians and academic researchers have focused on the Oslo peace agreements, generally emphasizing the “New Middle East” and “Transnationalism.” Less attention has been paid to social and economic changes affected by the process of peacemaking. This paper examines the reality that was created from below and asks what the peace process meant to migrant Palestinian workers in Israel. Three years of ethnography challenge accepted theories of borders and borderland in the case of Israel and Palestine by asking what can be learned about the cultural identity of people from the ways they cross, understand, and move between geopolitical and cultural boundaries. In the last years of the Oslo Agreements, it became clear to the workers that “peace” meant preserving national borders: it involved a policy of separation, whereas their very livelihood depended on their ability to move between Tel Aviv and the Gaza Strip. Torn between their national identity and their class–cultural identity, they formulated a demand for a dialectical reorganization: a state without borders. This demand stood in opposition to the national aspirations of Israel and the Palestinian state-in-being alike.
Authors: Meirav Aharon-Gutman
תקציר: ההפרדה בין תעשייה, מסחר ומגורים (zoning – (עמדה בלב התכנון העירוני המודרניסטי. ביקורת על תפיסה זו רווחת בקרב מתכנני ערים וארכיטקטים מזה עשרים שנה. עם זאת, ביקורת על הגיון תכנוני זה לא שינתה את המרחב העירוני הקיים וגם לא חלחלה אל התכנון העתידי של העיר. לטענתי, לא ניתן להבין את חווית המרחב הישראלי בלי להבין את הגיון התכנון בהפרדה ואת אסטרטגיות החיים של העולים – מהגרים החיים בתוכו. בהסתמך על שלוש שנות מחקר שדה בעיר אשדוד אשרטט את המרחב העירוני בטווח שבין מקרו – סדר (zoning (ובין המיקרו סדר (חיי היום יום של תושבי העיר). במאמר זה אביא שלוש דוגמאות אתנוגראפיות מן העבר ומן ההווה העירוני אשר מאירים את האופן בו צורכים אנשים את המבנה (במובנו הפיזי ובמובנו כמבנה חברתי – כאחד). על סמך דיווחים אלה אטען כי תושביה – מהגריה של העיר אינם קוראים תיגר על עצם החיים בעיר מתוכננת. הם ניכסו את השיכון, את הרבעים, את המבנה העירוני הפיזי ויצקו בו הגדרות משלהם ל”בית”, “משפחה”, “עבודה”, “צריכה” ו”ייצור”. התפקוד שלהם במרחב העירוני המתוכנן לא עיצב אותם מחדש כאנשים חדשים, כפי שראו המתכננים בעיני רוחם. אלא אופן צריכתם את המרחב העירוני המתוכנן יצר בו טרנספורמציות והציף על פני השטח הגדרות חדשות של סדר חברתי ואגב כך הטיל ספק באפקטיביות של הגדרות “הטוב המשותף” כפי שנוסחו על ידי אליטות פרופסיונאליות.
Authors: Meirav Aharon-Gutman
תקציר: בשנות המחקר, 2000-2004 ,עמד הליכוד בשיא כוחו, הן בזירה הארצית והן בשדה המחקר, אשדוד. דווקא אז הפך למושא ללעג ולביקורת ציבורית נוקבת. אשאל כיצד נוצר פער זה בין כוחו האלקטורלי של הליכוד לבין הונו הסימבולי? על סמך חקירה אתנוגרפית אטען כי ”ניצחון השיטה“ ־ אימוץ האזרחות ה”ראויה“ (citizenship appropriate (־ יצר תרבות פוליטית חדשה: אזרחות מנכסת )citizenship appropriating .)אזרחות זו נוצרת בשלושה שלבים: בשלב הראשון מאמצים האנשים את המודלים הראויים )פעילות במפלגה, בחירות(; בשלב השני נוצרת הפרדה בין צורה לתוכן והכלים הראויים נטענים בתוכן חדש מטעמים של דת, שפה והקשרים כלכליים וסוציו–היסטוריים; בשלב השלישי מתגבשת האזרחות המנכסת, ונוצרת שפה חדשה–ישנה ומופעים חדשים–ישנים של צבירת כוח )טופסי מתפקדים, מחנות ורשימות עצמאיות(. מודל זה מציע ביקורת על התרבות הפוליטית המודרנית ועל מה שהייתה עבור מהגריה של עיר הלאום המודרנית.
Authors: Meirav Aharon-Gutman
תקציר: תקציר. בעקבות מחקר אתנוגרפי בקרב מהגרי עבודה פלסטינים, תושבי הרשות הפלסטינית בישראל, אני טוענת לקיומה של מציאות דו–ערכית, שאינה באה לידי ביטוי בדיון הציבורי בשנים שלאחר החתימה על הסכם אוסלו, שנים שבמהלכן קנו להן אחיזה בתודעה הציבורית מטבעות לשון כמו “קץ הסכסוך”, “שלום” ו”הסדרי קבע”. המחקר שלפנינו חושף את מציאות חייהם של מהגרי העבודה הפלסטינים, מציאות שמצביעה על קיומו של “מזרח תיכון חדש” — “מזרח תיכון של מטה”. זהו מזרח תיכון שמיומם, כורך, מתיר ומסכסך בין משטרים שונים, וכך מאתגר את “ארגז הכלים” שמציע הדיון המקובל בכל הנוגע לזהות, לאומיות והגירת עבודה. המאמר משרטט את קוויה של תרבות גבול, תרבות שלישית, ומציג אותה כמסגרת פרשנית לתהליכים מקבילים וסותרים של הפרדה ומפגש.
Authors: Daphna Levine, Shai Sussman, Sharon Yavo Ayalon & Meirav Ahron-Gutman
Abstract: The urban research community tends to view gentrification-based displacement as the primary demographic impact of urban regeneration. This study reopens the discussion by asking whether urban regeneration in Israel does indeed work to the detriment of local homeowners, or whether it expands their opportunities for social mobility. By employing a micro-simulation model based on data pertaining to the households and the existing and planned apartments in the city, the study finds that whereas low-income residents are expected to be displaced, most of the middle-income homeowners will survive the process and benefit from a new apartment.
Authors: Daphna Levine, Meirav Ahron-Gutman
Abstract: Urban regeneration and its implications for issues such as housing, gentrification, and homeownership have been researched by numerous theorists, practitioners, and policy makers. However, this article challenges the perception that urban regeneration is primarily a policy driver that leads to the displacement of residents, and by proposing an investigation of how urban regeneration also constitutes an opportunity for homeowners to achieve ‘In-Place Social Mobility’ (IPSM) – that is, social mobility without leaving their homes and neighborhoods. At a time when the welfare and social service system is weakening, residential property values are increasing, and wages remain stagnant, individuals must turn their homes into investment assets in order to increase their social opportunities. Following the Planning Deal and the Regeneration Deal, the interpretative scheme of the ‘Social Deal’ incorporates two fields: the city as a growth machine, and the social mobility of the homeowners. Through the theoretical demonstration of the notion of IPSM through urban regeneration in Israel, we propose the Social Deal as a new way of understanding the rent gap discussion – i.e., not only as a result of the cultural preferences of consumers on the one hand, or of real estate developers and market supply on the other hand, but also as a means to the self-profit of the residents.
Authors: Meirav Ahron-Gutman
Abstract: This article examines the production of ‘high culture’ and how it shapes social mobility. I observe how the second generation of immigrants from North Africa have succeeded in rising up the Israeli social hierarchy by appropriating established modes of cultural expression. The founders of the Israel Andalusian Orchestra became aware that the road to full integration was closed to them by the politics of difference, that the way to total segregation from wider Israeli society was closed by economic and ontological dependence on the national state, and the option of multiculturalism condemned them to a permanently marginal status. They realized that they needed a new political approach and that cultural appropriation was the way by which they could reclaim their ethnic identity yet still establish themselves among the élite of Israel.
Authors: Daphna Levine, Meirav Ahron-Gutman
Abstract: Whereas the literature largely assumes that original residents are displaced from their communities following the implementation of market-oriented housing regeneration, this study indicates that such housing regeneration can also enable lower-middle class homeowners to turn their homes into an economic springboard. First, we argue that the social effects of the day after regeneration are the result of a process of social and spatial rupture that occurs during the extended pre-regeneration period. Therefore, understanding the social implications of urban regeneration requires us to view the act of regeneration in the broad historical context of the long-standing deterioration of the social fabric and the built environment. Second, we hold that these conditions lay the basis for an individualization of advancing personal profit through which homeowners advance the regeneration of the residences in their building while internalizing a discourse of “real-estatization” toward “self-gentrification.“ The article examines this dynamic by focusing on homeowners in a disadvantaged environment located at the heart of real-estate interest in Israel.
Authors: Moriel Ram, Meirav Aharon Gutman
Abstract: In recent years, Lefebvre's concept of rhythm analysis has been implied in various ways to critically examine how rhythms are formed, disrupted, and reformed through different urban venues. One theme that this body of knowledge has yet to comprehensively examine, however, is how changes in the urban sphere impact the spatial rhythms of religious institutions in cities, which can be pivotal for understanding how religious institutions are formed as urban public spaces. This article addresses this issue with a rhythm analysis of a particular religious urban locus: a synagogue in the mixed Palestinian and Jewish city of Acre in northern Israel. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and an urban survey, the article discusses how different forms of rhythm-making undergo a process of contested synchronization with linear and cyclical rhythms of the city. More specifically, how the ability to forge a space hinges on the ability to maintain a rhythmic cycle of attendance, which, in turn, is not only dependent on the ability to achieve synchronization amongst the needs of the different participants but is also intertwined with the larger linear cycle of urban life as a rhythmic equation that fuses the personal with the political, the linear with the cyclical, and the religious with the urban.
bottom of page