Oren Yiftachel, Lloyd Hurst Family Chair of Urban Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Planning, identity and violent conflict: the spatial making of apartheid in Israel/Palestine.
October 25th, 2024, 17h - Auditório Seda Nunes, ICS-ULisboa
The first session of the 2024 AESOP Lecture Series took place at the Institute of Social Science of the University of Lisbon (ICS-ULisboa).
The event was organized by the Urban Transitions Hub of ICS-ULisboa and the AESOP Thematic Group Global South & East; the keynote speaker for the Lecture was Oren Yiftachel (Lloyd Hurst Family Chair of Urban Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev).
Contrary to what had been originally planned, and because of the current turmoil in the region, Professor Yiftachel could not be physically present in Lisbon; he thus delivered an online keynote lecture titled Planning, identity and violent conflict: the spatial making of apartheid in Israel/Palestine.
The talk addressed the current state of affairs of the Israeli/Palestinian relations and the war in Gaza – a stark reminder of the continued existence of a deep, entrenched conflict around issues of land, human rights, and collective identities in Israel/Palestine. Professor Yiftachel then moved to examine the role of planning and territorial development policies in the trajectory of the conflict, showing how Israeli governments have tapped into the potential of planning in order to advance a political agenda based on ethnonational preference; and how this trajectory has brought about a full-fledged system of control over the disenfranchised Arab population. In his conclusive remarks, Professor Yiftachel has highlighted the positive potential of planning practices in redressing social and political injustices.
During the lively Q&A, Professor Yiftachel was asked to develop further on issues that include the role of imperialist power, the potential and limits of international and national legal systems, the nature of power relationships in Palestine Israel
Professor Yiftachel’s lecture was introduced by short interventions by Simone Tulumello (UTH, ICS-ULisboa), Chandrima Mukhopadhyay (AESOP TG Global South & East), Paulo Silva (AESOP, University of Aveiro), and Marco Allegra (UTH, ICS-ULisboa). A total of some seventy people attended the lecture and the debate that followed Professor Yiftachel’s talk.
