Chen Misgav
Dr. Chen Misgav (BA, MSc., PhD), is an urban planner and geographer. He is currently a post doctorate fellow, in the Department Of Geography and Environmental Development in Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and a research fellow in Minerva Humanities Center at Tel-Aviv University, Israel. Misgav works primarily on social and cultural geography, spatial politics and planning issues, focusing on urban social movements and spatial politics of activism, gender and sexuality and the relations between LGBTQ movements and activism and planning and policy makers in urban areas. His recent projects focus on the Planning, politics and the queer/LGBT community in Beersheba.
Address: Yavne st.
Tel-Aviv
Address: Yavne st.
Tel-Aviv
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PhD Abstract
The research focuses on spatial and urban contexts of activism, gender and sexuality in Tel Aviv, with the aim of understanding the modes of creation and construction of physical, socio-cultural and symbolic spaces of activism. Special emphasis is given to the research arenas and activities occurring within them through three concepts – body, identity and memory – and the complex interactions between them. The research focuses on spatial politics and how it is constructed and reproduced through spatial activism in the contexts of gender and sexuality, particularly feminist and LGBT/queer activism. Theoretically, it is based on theories of social movements and activism, political geography, and feminist and queer geographies and theories. Its theoretical aim is to broaden the knowledge and understanding of activism from a geographical-spatial perspective that, unlike other social scientific disciplines such as sociology or political sciences, has been relatively neglected in the political activism literature.
Based on a qualitative research design that includes 51 in-depth interviews, participant observations and visual materials such as mental maps, the research has been conducted in three different organizational arenas in Tel Aviv: City Center for the LGBT Community in Gan Meir, Bayit Banamal in the Tel Aviv port, and Beit Achoti (My Sister’s Home) in a downtown neighborhood. These arenas differ from each other in their geographical locations in the city, the community they produced, and the nature of their activity. The common aspect to all three is their involvement in issues of gender or sexuality and that a regular activity takes place in all.
The main conclusion emerging from examining these arenas is that spatial activism striving to promote significant social and political change can take different forms and address different publics with different identities, and is not necessarily a conventional expression of resistance and protest, though it can also appear in this form. In many cases social and political change can be achieved by means of spatial activism in a variety of public and also semi-public spaces, including government and private sector spaces, and not only those that fully or purely identified with civil society. Wherever spatial activism occurs there is potential for constructing autonomous spaces that also enable the construction of a third activist space that brings together different people with different identities and experiences of activism.
Another, related conclusion is that spatial activism that operates in organizational arenas and not necessarily in spaces and configurations of ad-hoc protest affects the daily life and personal and collective spatial management of individuals, and creates “an activist lifestyle” in which spatial activism becomes an integral and significant part of the individual’s life.
Finally, despite the common tendency to view activism as limited only to certain social classes or to “professional activists” who consider activism their goal in life, the cases examined in this research indicate that spatial activism can emerge not only from a variety of physical and social-cultural locations but also in a variety of identity configurations. Thus, the importance of spatial activism lies also in the fact that enables many people to be involved, among them those who do not regard themselves as activists.
PhD Abstract
The research focuses on spatial and urban contexts of activism, gender and sexuality in Tel Aviv, with the aim of understanding the modes of creation and construction of physical, socio-cultural and symbolic spaces of activism. Special emphasis is given to the research arenas and activities occurring within them through three concepts – body, identity and memory – and the complex interactions between them. The research focuses on spatial politics and how it is constructed and reproduced through spatial activism in the contexts of gender and sexuality, particularly feminist and LGBT/queer activism. Theoretically, it is based on theories of social movements and activism, political geography, and feminist and queer geographies and theories. Its theoretical aim is to broaden the knowledge and understanding of activism from a geographical-spatial perspective that, unlike other social scientific disciplines such as sociology or political sciences, has been relatively neglected in the political activism literature.
Based on a qualitative research design that includes 51 in-depth interviews, participant observations and visual materials such as mental maps, the research has been conducted in three different organizational arenas in Tel Aviv: City Center for the LGBT Community in Gan Meir, Bayit Banamal in the Tel Aviv port, and Beit Achoti (My Sister’s Home) in a downtown neighborhood. These arenas differ from each other in their geographical locations in the city, the community they produced, and the nature of their activity. The common aspect to all three is their involvement in issues of gender or sexuality and that a regular activity takes place in all.
The main conclusion emerging from examining these arenas is that spatial activism striving to promote significant social and political change can take different forms and address different publics with different identities, and is not necessarily a conventional expression of resistance and protest, though it can also appear in this form. In many cases social and political change can be achieved by means of spatial activism in a variety of public and also semi-public spaces, including government and private sector spaces, and not only those that fully or purely identified with civil society. Wherever spatial activism occurs there is potential for constructing autonomous spaces that also enable the construction of a third activist space that brings together different people with different identities and experiences of activism.
Another, related conclusion is that spatial activism that operates in organizational arenas and not necessarily in spaces and configurations of ad-hoc protest affects the daily life and personal and collective spatial management of individuals, and creates “an activist lifestyle” in which spatial activism becomes an integral and significant part of the individual’s life.
Finally, despite the common tendency to view activism as limited only to certain social classes or to “professional activists” who consider activism their goal in life, the cases examined in this research indicate that spatial activism can emerge not only from a variety of physical and social-cultural locations but also in a variety of identity configurations. Thus, the importance of spatial activism lies also in the fact that enables many people to be involved, among them those who do not regard themselves as activists.