Resumen de Whose Right to Jerusalem?

Gillad Rosen, Anne B. Shlay

• Jerusalem is a city mired in spatial conflict. Its contested spaces represent deep conflictsamong groups that vary by national identity, religion, religiosity and gender. Theomnipresent nature of these conflicts provides an opportunity to look at Henri Lefebvre’sconcept of the right to the city (RTC). The RTC has been adopted and celebrated as apolitical tool for positive change, enabling communities to take control of space. Basedon extensive fieldwork and in-depth interviews, this article explores the complexity of theRTC principles and examines three urban battlefields in Jerusalem — Bar-Ilan Street,the Kotel and the Orient House. The RTC is a powerful idea, providing the opportunityto examine people’s everyday activities within the context of how space can be used tosupport their lives. Yet Jerusalem’s myriad divisions produce claims by different groupsto different parts of the city. In Jerusalem, the RTC is not a clear vision but akaleidoscope of rights that produces a fragmented landscape within a religious andethno-national context governed by the nation state — Israel. The growth of cultural andethnic diversity in urban areas may limit the possibility for a unified RTC to emerge inan urban sea of demands framed by difference. Space-based cultural conflict exemplifiesurban divisions and exacerbates claims to ‘my Jerusalem’, not ‘our Jerusalem’.Identity-based claims to the RTC appear to work against, not for, a universalistic RTC