RGP Cycle 5 Grantees and Projects
Investigator: Maha Samman, Al-Quds University
Country: Palestine
Grant Type: Individual Grant
Project Title: Geopolitics of “Time” and the Concept of Production of Colonial Temporal Patterns in Jerusalem
The proposed research shall conduct an analysis of the theme of Colonial Urban Planning, in which the colonizer organizes and re-organizes spaces by its apparatus according to its own interests at the expense of the local inhabitants. It focuses on Jerusalem, and builds on existing research that places the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in a colonial framework, and on scholarship analyzing colonial urban planning in various areas of the world through multiple variables which have developed spaces of control and spaces of resistance.
The aim of the proposed research is to develop the concept of production of colonial temporal patterns by using time as the distinct variable in the study of real-time colonial urban planning in Jerusalem. The particular research gap that shall be filled is the analysis of “time” in a way that manifests how colonial urban planning advantages the colonizing group by enhancing accomplishment through time-saving, while simultaneously disadvantaging the colonized group by diminishing accomplishment through time-depletion, where a colonizing group represents a foreign political economic project (the Zionist project) to dominate a land and people of the colonized group (the Palestinian Jerusalemites). Formed is what this study shall call colonial temporal patterns.
The research question that the study attempts to answer is: How does colonial urban planning facilitate depletion of accomplishment of time for the colonized? And how are colonial temporal patterns produced in Jerusalem?
Previous research has concentrated on past colonial cases, meaning it has been difficult to quantify the time saved and spent. The focus on Jerusalem, being under an existing and on-going colonial influence in real-time and the analysis of “time”, is therefore novel.
The methodology to tackle this problem combines quantitative, qualitative and spatial analysis. It is based on linking the collected data about movement and time spending with spatial analyses of colonial space; these shall be fed into and presented through the Geographic Information System (GIS). The data collection shall take two forms: the first shall map the temporal patterns of a selected sample of people from Jerusalem, and the second shall be in the form of questionnaires filled in the field within two selected localities in Jerusalem. The research shall consequently provide data on the temporal daily patterns of Palestinians in Jerusalem and their perception of colonial temporal patterns.
The results of the research shall provide a new understanding of colonial urban planning and its impact on the colonized, not only spatially but also temporally. This in turn has implications on: reducing inequality, making cities inclusive and sustainable, and promoting just, inclusive and peaceful societies.
---------------------------------------------
Maha Samman is an Assistant Professor at the Architecture Department and coordinator of the Jerusalem Research Program at the Centre for Jerusalem Studies, Al-Quds University. She is the author of Trans-Colonial Urban Space in Palestine: Politics and Development, Routledge, 2013. She has a BSc in Architecture from Birzeit University, an MSc in Urban Planning from Technical University of Delft, The Netherlands, and a PhD in Political Geography from the University of Exeter, UK. She was a recipient of the 2004 British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES) Research Award. She wrote on Colonial Urban Space in Palestine, Israeli Settlement Evacuation, Urban Heritage in Palestine, and on Jerusalem. She is the coeditor of the bi-annual monograph Ya Quds! which publishes articles on various topics about Jerusalem. Her research interests are multidisciplinary covering architecture, urban planning, political geography, colonial urban space, temporal inequality, Palestine, Jerusalem.
