This article was downloaded by: [79.180.163.159] On: 13 December 2013, At: 09:16 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ccit20 Re-forming the political body in the city: The interplay of male bodies and territory in urban public spaces in Tel Aviv Yael Allweil & Rachel Kallus Published online: 11 Dec 2013. To cite this article: Yael Allweil & Rachel Kallus (2013) Re-forming the political body in the city: The interplay of male bodies and territory in urban public spaces in Tel Aviv, City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action, 17:6, 748-777, DOI: 10.1080/13604813.2013.849128 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2013.849128 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. 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Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms- and-conditions CITY, 2013 VOL. 17, NO. 6, 748–777, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2013.849128 Re-forming the political body in the city The interplay of male bodies and territory in urban public spaces in Tel Aviv Yael Allweil and Rachel Kallus This paper aims to rethink the city–nation relationship as overlapping spatial oeuvres where political communities are produced and negotiated. It examines negotiations over inclusion and exclusion from the Israeli political body conducted in enclaves along the Tel Aviv shore- line by seemingly marginal groups of men. The groups studied—homosexual cruisers at Independence Park, the Circle of Drummers at the Dolphinarium and SUV drivers at North Shore cliffs—assert themselves as part of the national political body by making claims to two of Israel’s founding mechanisms: masculinity and territory. Negotiations involve appropriation of distinct territories in the urban public space through a mutual re-shaping of territory and male bodies. The examination of these surprising ‘urban design’ practices, where public spaces are means to negotiate social inclusion, proposes an analytical framework for understanding gender as a bodily and therefore spatial mechanism for identity construction and social struggle. While city and nation are often studied as com- peting political spheres, this paper identifies city and nation as overlapping spatial oeuvres, where the political body is being formed via concrete sites and bodily performances. Key words: politics of public space, bodily performance, oeuvre, masculinity, shoreline, homosexual cruising, Circle of Drummers, Jeep, SUV Downloaded by [79.180.163.159] at 09:16 13 December 2013 1. Introduction broader public discovered the beach as an asset and that massive development took or many years, only tourists regarded off (Hatuka and Kallus 2007). With these the Tel Aviv shoreline as the most changes, the marginal patchwork ecology Fattractive place in the city. Tel Avi- of the shoreline suddenly found itself vians considered it indecent because of within the fabric of the city. The public improper body exposure and unhealthy space of the shoreline, dotted with due to seaside humidity. The shore—neg- ‘pockets of deviant behavior’, became the lected and detached from the fabric of the main site for negotiating inclusion into city—attracted marginal groups whose be- and exclusion from ‘the public’ as political havior was considered unsuitable or even community, conducted primarily via deviant (Azaryahu 2007). It was only in bodily urban design, and responded to by the 1980 s that the municipality and the urban planning and regulation. This paper # 2013 Taylor & Francis ALLWEIL AND KALLUS:RE-FORMING THE POLITICAL BODY IN THE CITY 749 Figure 1 Aerial photo of the Tel Aviv 13-kilometer-long shoreline, oriented to the west, with the location of studied sites: A marks the Dolphinarium site, B marks Independence Park, C marks the Mandarin Northern Shore area (Source: Tel Aviv Municipal Planning Department open access GIS. Copyright # Tel Aviv Municipality) examines negotiations for social inclusion regarding the role of urban public space for as they are manifested in the bodily urban struggles over the identity of the political design and regulatory urban planning of community and those included in it, is three such groups–sites: the ‘Circle of missing from our scholarly purview. Thus, Drummers’ operating behind a deserted despite much excellent work on the social Dolphinarium at the ‘seam-line’1 area production of the city using themes such as between Jaffa and Tel Aviv; gay cruising gender, citizenship and neoliberalism, at Independence Park, on a cliff overlook- further work is required for examining the ing the Mediterranean; and SUV2 drivers, city’s role in producing bodies and nation. field driving on the Mandarin cliffs on the Disregarding this role we are left with an North Shore, the last ‘open field’ in the inadequate understanding of what is at stake metropolitan area (Figure 1). in the city as a public political space. Mean- The debate on urban fragmentation has while, scholars of gender studies like ranged across several academic fields and Heynen and Baydar (2005) and Colomina theoretical frameworks, discussing spatial (1996) examine spatial power relations as segregation as reflecting a number of frag- gendered in many ways, identifying hegemo- mentation processes in contemporary nic space as male-dominated and excluded society alongside social fragmentation by genders (women, homosexuals and trans- multifarious communal forms of affiliation genders) as victims of segregation from politi- (economic, cultural, ethnic, etc.): studies of cal space in the city and in the home. urban segregation, such as gated communities However, few studies focus on the multiple or ghettos, by Davis ([1990] 2006), Marcuse productions of male identities in physical and van Kempen (2002) and Caldeira spaces vis-a`-vis the collective identity of pol- Downloaded by [79.180.163.159] at 09:16 13 December 2013 (2000), see these enclaves as serving and sus- itical society, namely, on the male gender taining hegemonic social order through the beyond patriarchal hegemony. segregation of strong groups and the exclusion This paper studies the relationship between of weak ones. Conversely, research con- city, body and nation by examination of cerned with social change such as Lefebvre urban public sites in Tel Aviv, appropriated (1991), de Certeau (1988) and Crawford by insurgent male or male-dominated com- (1999), see urban public space as a site for munities as sites for negotiating their resistance, where the powerless/space-less inclusion into the urban and national are able to defy the regulating mechanisms public.4 We combine theory, archival of the established order—yet identify resist- research and urban ethnography to establish ance as temporal and a-territorial actions. a fundamental understanding of the social However, none of these works examines production of the city beyond capital; and the fragmentation of public space by space- contribute to the literature by offering a less communities in order to negotiate over complementary analysis of the interplay it as political oeuvre.3 The key question between city and nation as overlapping 750 CITY VOL. 17, NO.6 spatial oeuvres. Moreover, we ask how the male body and identity category enables weak communities to negotiate their inclusion in the political body of a society constructed as male-potent. Examining three communities of men, this paper aims to (a) examine groups’ bodily per- formances, producing surprising ‘urban design’ of public space as a means for claim- ing stakes over the city and negotiating social inclusion, (b) propose an analytical fra- mework for understanding the role of gender as a bodily and therefore spatial mechanism Figure 2 The replacement of the gay rainbow flag over for identity construction and social struggle Independence Park with a national flag. Note the park’s open landscape and its use by a child, a heterosexual in urban and national frameworks, and (c) couple, a dog and an elderly man (Illustration: Dudi Sha- rethink the city–nation relationship, often mai, in Lavie 2009. Source: Dudi Shamai) studied as opposing spatial frameworks, as overlapping spatial oeuvres