CONSERVATION: COMMEMORATION OF HISTORY OR REJECTION OF HISTORY? THE CASE STUDY OF JAFFA, ISRAEL
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 22/01/2021

This paper will examine the dialectic role conservation plays in urban planning in the neoliberal age of privatization and globalization through the case study of Jaffa, Israel. While neoliberal processes have assumedly transformed conservation into a tool enabling the rejection of any specific historic perception of the past in the urban space, I will attempt to demonstrate how its’ use underlines the historic narratives that shaped the dichotomous relations between Jews and Palestinians in Israeli society. Studies that examine conservation in the neoliberal age assume that processes of privatization and globalization allow the deconstruction of its political and ideological aspects, focusing only on the economic advantages it may convey to the urban space. According to these studies, conservation is thus transformed into a tool that is used in urban planning that transcends beyond competing perceptions of the past that fueled the dichotomous relations between Jews and Palestinians in Israel. However, through the case study of Jaffa, I will claim that this very aspiration to “reject history” serves to strengthen dichotomous power relations between hegemonic groups and minority groups in society. In Israeli society Jaffa Symbolizes the contradicting historical narratives of Jews and Palestinians. Ostensibly, any ideologically neutral conservation process that is to take place in this space should take these competing narratives into consideration. However, it is my contention that the examination of recent discussions regarding the most appropriate conservation practices that should be utilized in recently implemented urban regeneration plans demonstrates how the attempt to reject history only accentuates its importance in ethnically mixed urban spaces such as Jaffa in which not only do Jews and Palestinians live side by side, but their contested memories and perceptions of the past continue to resonate as well


Shiff, Menachem (Tel Aviv University)