Haim Yacobi, Ben Gurion University of the Negev
One of the growing fields of study in the last decades is the spatio-politics of ethnically contested spaces and territories. This interest should not surprise us, since many national spaces and post-colonial regions are witnessing ongoing ethnic conflicts which are often violent. Following my own research on these topics I began to wonder whether my academic work on Israel\Palestine may be relevant to other non-contested regions as well, since in the present global context, an increasing number of sites is becoming polarized, ghettoized and fragmented through mechanisms that are surprisingly similar (Yacobi, 2009).
Though many of the contributions to the study of the politics and spatialities of contested spaces are significant (see for example: Todorova, 1997; Bollens, 2000; 2009; Anderson, 2008; Davis and Duren, 2011), I would suggest that most of the existing work analytically overlooks similar conditions in a growing number of ‘ordinary’, non-contested spaces which are considered external to the classical divided spaces category. In other words, there is a tendency in the literature to fall into the ‘Orientalist’ trap by essentializing specific regions which contain in their view particular attributes that distinguish them from other areas. Moreover, there is an additional weakness in the existing body of knowledge about conflict studies and geographies of power; authors tend to give little voice to the cases themselves as a platform for the production of theory, and instead frame their cases within fashionable yet vague theoretical debates.
With this in mind, while I read James Ron’s book Frontiers and Ghettos: State Violence in Serbia and Israel (University of California Press, 2003) which deals with state violence in Serbia and Israel, I was impressed by the author’s attitude. On one hand, the book is based on a detailed and rich research fieldwork, exploring Israeli violence in Lebanon and the Occupied Territories as well as Serbia’s campaign against non-Serbs in Bosnia. On the other hand, James Ron conceptualizes the findings in a way that give this book a cutting-edge theoretical relevance. James Ron deals with state violence in both Serbia and Israel by developing throughout the book two useful concepts; the ghetto and the frontier. These two metaphors are used as analytical lenses not just to study the cases but also as theoretical scaffoldings that explain a spectrum of states’ practices of control over population and territory. Significantly, James Ron interprets the ghetto and the frontier as parts of political dynamics rather than as static conditions which characterize contested regions and societies (Ron, 2003, page 192).
This is a well-written book which enables the reader to follow the arguments and the rich theoretical debates without over-theorizing or reverting to a fascination by instances of violence in Serbia or Israel\Palestine. This book, I would conclude, is an essential source for scholars of space and (state) power or violence and territorialisation, who believe that theory and empirical studies are not mutually exclusive.
References
Anderson J, 2008 From Empires to Ethno-National Conflicts, Conflict in Cities and the Contested State, Working Paper n.1: www.conflictincities.org
Bollens S, 2000 On narrow ground: urban policy and ethnic conflict in Jerusalem and Belfast (State University of New York Press, Albany)
Bollens S A, 2009, “Intervening in Politically Turbulent Cities: Spaces, Buildings, and Boundaries” Journal of Urban Technology 16(2) 79-107
Davis D E, de Duren N L, 2011 Cities and Sovereignty: Identity Politics in Urban Spaces (Indiana University Press, Indianapolis)
Todorova M N, 1997 Imagining the Balkans (Oxford University Press, Oxford UK)
Yacobi H, 2009 The Jewish-Arab City: Spatio-politics in a mixed community (Routledge, London and New York)
