Abstract
This article critically discusses the image and the imagining of the Arab village produced by two cultures, the national-Zionist from the 1930s onwards, and the national-Palestinian during the last decade. Unlike fellow theorists and researchers, we are reluctant to be satisfied with the claim that throughout history the Jews, establishing their identity vis-à-vis the rural and oriental other, perceived the Arab village in an inversely mirrored manner. Instead, we suggest that it took the Arab village only a few years to transform from an object which represents the other and a signifier of the backward enemy, to what we would define as still life, a-historical and de-politicised. The Arab village, we would argue, became an object, a source of colonial imagination in the Israeli architectural culture, which sought the local in order to establish a national identity, without associating it with its creator, the Arab society. Within this framework, we also suggest that through a process of mutual contamination the Arab village is perceived and politically re-constructed by Palestinian architectural discourse and practice within the boundaries of Israel.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 975-997 |
Number of pages | 23 |
Journal | Journal of Architecture |
Volume | 19 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2 Nov 2014 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2014 RIBA Enterprises.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Architecture
- Visual Arts and Performing Arts