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A photo of Heba Taha

Hebatalla Taha

Researcher

A photo of Heba Taha

Freedom and Peace in the Shopping Centre: The Politics of Consumerism and Securitism in Israel/Palestine

Author

  • Hebatalla Taha
  • Nancy Hawker

Summary, in English

Shopping centres are products and indicators of consumerism. In the case of Israel/Palestine, where shopping malls have spread since the mid-1980s, they have acquired political meanings beyond the widespread conception of consumer-choice-as-freedom, as they also claim to advance coexistence in a context marked by ethnic segregation. We perceive shopping centres as ‘non-places’, following the work of Marc Augé, and analyse two overarching ideologies that coalesce in the shopping centre, in alignment with the political economy of Israel/Palestine. The first is liberal peace, which underpins the remnants of the Oslo process, but in an individualized form. The second is securitism, which presents shopping centres as a secure island in a sea of inter-ethnic violence. This image is taken apart throughout the article on the basis of ethnographic and discourse-analytical research on four sites in Israel, Jerusalem, and the occupied West Bank, focusing on the ways Palestinian consumers experience Israeli shopping centres.

Publishing year

2020

Language

English

Pages

294-315

Publication/Series

Journal of Political Ideologies

Volume

25

Issue

3

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Topic

  • Political Science

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1356-9317