Gives Voice to Palestinians Whose Visions of the Future are Rooted in Gaza's Storied History, Revealing Urban Architecture in Gaza as a Highly Political Form of Cultural Production. A Territory in Conflict?is a history of colonial and postcolonial development in modern Gaza. Drawing on rare archival material and personal accounts of professionals on the ground, it sheds new light on the enduring Israeli-Arab conflict through an exploration of urban architecture in Gaza as a political form of cultural production, and its entanglements with security, displacement and humanitarianism in the post-war era of 'economic peace.' The Gaza Strip has long been blockaded behind popular theoretical conceptions. A Territory in Conflict calls for its liberation. Through in-depth archival materials and interviews, Fatina Abreek-Zubeidat queries the extent to which regional development practices-and their negation-played a role in Gaza's extensive contemporary deterioration. From an urban architecture perspective, blending humanitarianism, she problematizes mainstream theoretical approaches to development in the social sciences of geopolitics, peace, and conflict. Highlighting development's role in the formation of Palestine's national landscape, while addressing the ways in which Israeli and international actors advocated forms of progress and modernization untethered to the past. AUTHOR: Fatina Abreek-Zubiedat is assistant professor of architectural history and criticism at the Tel Aviv University and head of the research lab Spaces-in-Transition. 69 b/w illustrations
