Forming identity, building community in mixed cities
The EMT project formed part of a larger project on ethnic relations in Mediterranean cities. The EU-funded research sought to shed light on how urban space, violent conflict and national identities have been represented and produced in ethnically mixed cities in Israel/Palestine. Focusing on relations of mutual determination between local communities, research examined the relations between opposing 'projects of nativisation' and community-building efforts in a contested urban setting. As such, the study posited mixed cities as presenting a challenge to the Israeli state’s ethno-nationalist guiding principles. Considering the present circumstances of this conflict between the two, neither national movement has been successful in maintaining segregated and ethnically stable spaces. EMT’s relational analysis approach showed that these spaces have led to new forms of local identities, and identified how Palestinian and Jewish citizens strive to define their respective collective identities. The research methods used offer a new framework within which to engage a broader set of questions in political sociology and urban anthropology in relation to ethnicity, citizenship and identity formation. Ethnographic and archival work was conducted in Israel and led to two book manuscripts and the publication of six articles in peer-reviewed sociology and anthropology journals.
