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Repopulating the emptiness: a spatial critique of ruination in Israel/Palestine

Leshem, N.

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Abstract

This paper critically examines the notions of spatial emptiness and ruination through their unsettled appearance in the archive of colonization. Focusing on the history of Zionist colonization of Palestine/Eretz Israel, it illustrates how the encounter with the land fractures the ideological construct of emptiness and foregrounds the ambiguities found at the heart of the self-assured discourse of Zionism. Though there is an established corpus of scholarship that deconstructs the colonial fallacy of ‘the empty land’, the actuality and materiality of emptying processes and acts of ruination remain on the margins of this critical effort. Through a rereading of key Zionist texts from different historical moments, the analysis sheds light on the contradictions and ambiguities that lie at the heart of the Zionist territorial project and the inherent weaknesses of the hegemonic production of space.

Citation

Leshem, N. (2013). Repopulating the emptiness: a spatial critique of ruination in Israel/Palestine. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 31(3), 522-537. https://doi.org/10.1068/d15711

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date 2013
Deposit Date Sep 20, 2013
Publicly Available Date Dec 3, 2014
Journal Environment and Planning D: Society and Space
Print ISSN 0263-7758
Electronic ISSN 1472-3433
Publisher SAGE Publications
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 31
Issue 3
Pages 522-537
DOI https://doi.org/10.1068/d15711
Keywords Colonization, Zionism, Emptiness, Ruins, Israel–Palestine.

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Copyright Statement
Leshem N., 2013. The definitive peer-reviewed and edited version of this article is published in Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 31(3), 522–537, 2013, http://dx.doi.org/10.1068/d15711.





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