Overview

Concealed within the walls of settlements along the Green-Line, the border between Israel and the occupied West-Bank, is a complex history of territoriality, privatisation and multifaceted class dynamics. Since the late 1970s, the state aimed to expand the heavily populated coastal area eastwards into the occupied Palestinian territories, granting favoured groups of individuals, developers and entrepreneurs the ability to influence the formation of built space as a means to continuously develop and settle national frontiers. As these settlements developed, they became a physical manifestation of the relationship between the political interest to control space and the ability to form it. Telling a socio-political and economic story from an architectural and urban history perspective, Gabriel Schwake demonstrates how this production of space can be seen not only as a cultural phenomenon, but also as one that is deeply entangled with geopolitical agendas.

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9781009069397

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Reviews

'Dwelling on the Green Line takes us for a gripping ride along the Trans-Israel Highway running in parallel to the Green-Line and the West-Bank Separation Wall. By connecting between the dots of the Israeli settlements on both sides of these three lines – the highway, the wall, and Israel's official border – Gabriel Schwake reveals how the privatisation of housing development facilitates Israel's ongoing colonial project.' Dr Irit Katz, University of Cambridge 'Israeli social scientists grapple since the 1980s' with the question of the relationship between its neo-colonial settlement policies and neo-liberal economic policies. Schwake provides a brilliant response: Israel's territorial politics works out through its class politics. The book thus offers a most sophisticated analysis of the convergence between national and social dynamics.' Uri Ram, Ben Gurion University of the Negev 'Offering a valuable critical perspective on the relationships between privatisation processes and the production of settler-colonial space in Israel, this book, which is based on a rich and original empirical study, argues that privatisation of settlement development, the production of the built environment and the erection of infrastructure such as the Trans‐ Israel Highway large projects goes beyond Israel's economic growth, rather is a complementary tool of geopolitical expansion. Importantly, the book focusses on an overlooked territorial unit, namely the frontier with the occupied West‐Bank. This book is a must-read as in offers a productive lens to understand the territorial reality, spatial politics and social fragmentation of Israel while engaging with critical theory.' Haim Yacobi, University College London

Author Information

Gabriel Schwake is an architect, urban designer and researcher. He is a Lecturer at the Sheffield School of Architecture, at the University of Sheffield, and co-director of Studio Sabra. Gabriel's work focuses on the issues of identities, conflicts, and neoliberalism, as well as the influences of nation-building and privatisation on the process of spatial production.

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